Elements of Physiophilosophy
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Title: Elements of Physiophilosophy
Author: Lorenz Oken
Translator: Alfred Tulk
Release date: June 11, 2015 [eBook #49196]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Variations in hyphenation have been standardised, but other variations
in spelling, accents and punctuation are as in the original.
There are several very wide tables in the book (e.g. Table A is 16
columns/380 characters wide). These have been divided into blocks
of 3 or 4 columns. The row alignment has been preserved and, where
appropriate. the 1st column repeated for each block.
The Errata and Corrigenda have been implemented, except for the final
item:
_For the words_ evolution _and_ evolved, _read passim in the Botanical
and Zoological parts_, perfection _and_ perfected, _as the text may
require_.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
* * * * *
THE
RAY SOCIETY.
INSTITUTED MDCCCXLIV.
[Illustration: Portrait of a man, signed W Bagg]
LONDON.
MDCCCXLVII.
ELEMENTS
OF
PHYSIOPHILOSOPHY.
BY
LORENZ OKEN, M.D.
PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ZÜRICH;
&c. &c.
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
ALFRED TULK,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE RAY SOCIETY.
MDCCCXLVII.
C. AND J. ADLARD, PRINTERS,
BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE.
"Of all truths relating to phenomena, the most valuable to us are
those which relate to the order of their succession. On a knowledge of
these is founded every reasonable anticipation of future facts, and
whatever power we possess of influencing those facts to our advantage.
Even the laws of geometry are chiefly of practical importance to us as
being a portion of the premises from which the order of the succession
of phenomena may be inferred."
JOHN STUART MILL.
Begun in the autumn of the year 1845, without the cognizance, or
at the suggestion of a single human being, the present Translation
is due to the fact of its original having encountered a somewhat
kindred spirit, and aroused therein the desire to render others
participant, if possible, in the large amount of instruction it is
so well calculated to afford. And now that the work is done, what
remains for the labourer at second-hand to say by way of preamble to
his newly-dressed wares? Had the book been printed within the pale of
a philosophical or physico-theological sect, the Translator's final
duty would have been clearly enough prescribed. Already bound to the
profession of "particular tenets," his main object would be to indulge
in a laudatory but servile abstract of his author's doctrines, or,
if having set out with the expressed intention of illustrating their
bearings upon the state of science past, present, and to come, he would
become so drunk beforehand with the large and unbridled potation of
his creed, as to surprise the casual reader by informing him that such
an intention is useless, for the two stand in direct antithesis to
each other. Examples of this mode of procedure are not wanting at the
present day, whether at home or abroad. They are the produce of that
spirit, which, rife enough in the Middle Ages, has been so graphically
described by Professor Whewell under the title of the "Commentatorial,"
and "whose professed object is to explain, to enforce, to illustrate
doctrines assumed to be true, but not to obtain additional truths or
new generalizations." While from dealings of this character, as being
utterly opposed to the sacred cause of Truth, I turn away with feelings
of repugnance, to which the lessons of some personal experience have
lent their aid, it is not my business, upon the other hand, to
enter the lists of controversy against those who, having neither the
capacity, nor the desire of its cultivation, for the higher walks of
science, delight to dismiss a work of the present kind with some idle
anathema of mysticism or evasive outcry for more facts.
I refrain from essaying to give any condensed formula or outline[A] of
Professor Oken's Physio-philosophy: first, because its leading points
have been already noted in his own prefaces to the German work and
its translation; secondly, because the book will, I trust, best speak
for itself to those who shall come with minds unprejudiced and duly
prepared, each one in his particular department, to its study; and,
lastly, because any such attempt would necessarily involve an amount
of historical and critical details, which must be here superficially
treated and so misplaced. Suffice it to observe, that the present
work stands alone in Germany, as being the most practical application
upon a systematic scale of the principles advanced by Schelling, more
especially in the Mathesis and Ontology; for the concluding part or
Biology stands almost "per se." As such it will form, apart from other
and higher considerations, a readily available introduction to the
writings upon similar subjects of Carus, Steffens, Hegel and others,
and may induce further attempts to render, by translation or history,
the English student familiar with much of what at present is known only
by scattered fragments in journals, or through the medium of reviews.
From what has been said, the reader will be at no loss to discern in
what light the Translator humbly desires to be viewed in reference to
the present work. He rests content with the confident hope that its
pages will be, at least, found eminently suggestive, that new thoughts
will be awakened by facts and their relations being here cast in a
fresh mould, that shall stimulate others in the field of inquiry, and
open paths hitherto untrod. In this he is but expressing the sentiments
of the author himself, and acknowledging what the present time with
its accumulating mass of knowledge presses upon us more and more--the
necessity of work, wherein abstract science and experience, theory
and facts shall advance together, the Ideal in part receiving and
reflecting back with increased lustre the light which it has derived
from the Real or outward semblance of things.
[A] For this the reader may be referred to the 3d vol. of Prof.
Blainville's Hist. des Sciences de l'Organisation; Par. 1845; or better
still, to the sketch (preceded by a view of Schelling's philosophy),
which is given by M. Saint-Agy in the Tome Complémentaire of Cuvier's
Hist. des Sciences Naturelles, 1845. He there rightly observes of
Oken's work, that "pendant les quarante dernières années il n'a presque
paru en Allemagne d'ouvrages d'anatomie, de physiologie, de physique et
de chimie auxquelles elle n'ait servi de base." For what a master-mind
like Oken's is capable of creating, I would especially refer to his
theory of the Cranial Homologies, which has been in our own country
so beautifully carried out, modified, and proved by the extensive
researches of Professor Owen.
Meanwhile, it is with no small amount of diffidence and hesitation
that the present Translation will quit my hands. Hemmed in by a rigid
dialectic terminology upon all sides, I have had difficulties of no
ordinary kind to contend with in adapting a language, composed of such
varied elements as our own, to meet the requisites of general clearness
and conciseness that form so prominent a feature of the German work. If
errors and obscurities exist, the blame, it will be observed, attaches
to myself, not to the distinguished author. Ill-health has conflicted
much with the calmness and repose of mind so indispensable to an
undertaking, at once novel in kind and character to the English reader;
or otherwise, these (my last labours unto any extent as a Translator)
might have been rendered more worthy of the Ray Society and the objects
it has in view.
To those who have kindly afforded me assistance in the progress
of the work, and to the latter body for undertaking it, I here
return many grateful thanks. The Author himself in a letter to the
Translator, dated Jan. 12, 1847, acknowledges the acceptance of his
work by the Society in the following words:--"The intelligence of my
Physio-philosophy having been deemed worthy of translation by so goodly
and enlightened a Society, cannot be otherwise unto me than a source of
delight."[B]
ALFRED TULK.
[B] "Die Nachricht dass meine Naturphilosophie von einer sociferigen
und erleuchteten Gesellschaft der Uebersetzung für würdig erachtet
worden ist, konnte nicht anders als mir Freude gewähren."
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION.
It is with no readiness or pleasure that I write introductions of any
kind, and usually abstain from doing so, partly because they appear
to me like a kind of apology or makeshift for the author, and partly
because the contents of the book itself should indicate his status or
position. With regard, however, to the history of the work, some few
words are certainly requisite for its Translation.
I wrote the first Edition of 1810 in a kind of inspiration, and on
that account it was not so well arranged as a systematic work ought
to be. Now, although this may appear to have been amended in the
second and third edition, yet still it was not possible for me to
completely attain the object held in view. The book has therefore
remained essentially the same as regards its fundamental principles,
such as those concerning the formation of matter, the protoplasmic
substance (_Schleim-Substanz_) and vesicular form of the organic mass,
the signification and function of the organs, as also the principles
of classification in Minerals, Plants and Animals, so that all this
is consequently as old as the first edition. It is only the empirical
arrangement into series of plants and animals, that has been modified
from time to time in accordance with the scientific elevation of
their several departments, or just as discoveries and anatomical
investigations have increased and rendered some other position of the
objects a matter of necessity. This susceptibility to change will of
course be persistent in the future, although the principles themselves
should continue wholly unchanged; ay, the very stability of the latter
will tend the more to invite the naturalist to the pursuit of empirical
inquiries, by determining beforehand in what direction he is to extend
his point of view, and thus spare himself the trouble of blindly and
laboriously groping about in the dense labyrinth of facts. Such a work
therefore as the present can only approximate completion through the
progress made in science, and each new edition will supply some defect
of its predecessor in the distribution or parcelling out of things.
In the first edition the principle was raised of individual bodies
being alone the object of Natural History, and that in the next place
they are to be arranged according to the combination of their organs or
component parts, and by no means after the division or mere form of a
single organ; that, for example, a special organ or anatomical system
lies as the basis of each Vegetable and Animal class, and that there
must be therefore as many classes, and no more, as there are cardinal
organs present upon which to found them. On that account it was
absolutely necessary first of all to find out these cardinal organs,
and determine their rank; and, in so doing, it was shown that organs
and classes are at bottom of one kind, and that the development by
stages or degrees of the embryo is the antetype of that of the classes;
furthermore, that each class takes its starting-point from below, and
consequently that the classes do not stand simply one above the other,
but fall into a series of mutually parallel ranks. Now it is this
which, along with the doctrine of the infusorio-vesicular form of the
organic mass, and that touching the signification of parts, as to how
e. g. the blossom is the repetition of the vegetable axis or trunk, the
cephalic bones that of the vertebræ, the feet of the branchiæ, and the
maxillæ in turn of the feet, appears to me the cardinal point attained
in my Philosophy of Nature; more especially, because it was these
very doctrines which were first of all, i. e. before all the others,
comprehended and almost universally adopted. The inorganic matters and
activities pass, however, parallel also to the anatomical formations
and functions; and that this is the case too with the spiritual or
psychical functions the philosophy of the future will probably be in
the condition to point out.
The reader will not expect to find that the serial arrangement of
Plants and Animals, with their parallelism, has been in every instance
thoroughly attained. The present is but a sample of how we are to
proceed in our desire of obtaining a Natural system. With such an
attempt one has something to change every year, and I have in the
present translation made some alterations in respect to the Mollusca
and Fishes. In this sense then it is my wish that the book may be
regarded, and accordingly received with its due amount of indulgence.
LORENZ OKEN.
PREFACE.
The first principles of the present work I laid down in my small
pamphlet entitled _Grundriss der Naturphilosophie, der Theorie der
Sinne und der darauf gegrundeten Classification der Thiere_; Frankfurt
bey Eichenberg, 1802, 8vo (out of print). I still abide by the position
there taken, namely, that the Animal Classes are virtually nothing
else than a representation of the sense-organs, and that they must be
arranged in accordance with them. Thus, strictly speaking, there are
only 5 Animal Classes: _Dermatozoa_, or the Invertebrata; _Glossozoa_,
or the Fishes, as being those animals in whom a true tongue makes for
the first time its appearance; _Rhinozoa_, or the Reptiles, wherein the
nose opens for the first time into the mouth and inhales air; _Otozoa_,
or the Birds, in which the ear for the first time opens externally;
_Ophthalmozoa_, or the Thricozoa, in whom all the organs of sense are
present and complete, the eyes being moveable and covered with two
palpebræ or lids. But since all vegetative systems are subordinated
to the tegument or general sense of feeling, the Dermatozoa divide
into just as many or corresponding divisions, which, on account of the
quantity of their contents, may be for the sake of convenience also
termed classes. Thereby 9 classes of the inferior animals originate,
but which, when taken together, have only the worth or value of a
single class. So much by way of explaining the apparent want of
uniformity in the system.
I first advanced the doctrine, that all organic beings originate from
and consist of _vesicles_ or _cells_, in my book upon Generation. (_Die
Zeugung._ Frankfurt bey Wesche, 1805, 8vo.) These vesicles, when singly
detached and regarded in their original process of production, are the
infusorial mass, or the protoplasma (_Ur-Schleim_) from whence all
larger organisms fashion themselves or are evolved. Their production
is therefore nothing else than a regular agglomeration of Infusoria;
not of course of species already elaborated or perfect, but of mucous
vesicles or points in general, which first form themselves by their
union or combination into particular species. This doctrine concerning
the primo-constituent parts of the organic mass is now generally
admitted or recognised, and I need not, therefore, add anything by way
of apology for it or defence.
In mine and Kieser's _Beyträgen zur vergleichenden Zoologie, Anatomie
und Physiologie_; Frankfurt bey Wesche, 1806, 4to, I have shown that
the intestines originate from the umbilical vesicle, and that this
corresponds to the vitellus. It is true _Friedrich Wolf_ had already
discovered it in the chick, but his was only a single instance, and
completely forgotten. I have also discovered it and without knowing
anything about my being anticipated, since it was nowhere taught. But
I have elevated this structure to the light of a general law, and it
is that unto which I may fairly lay claim. In the same essay I have
introduced into the Physiology the Corpora Wolfiana, or Primordial
Kidneys, but, having failed to recognise their signification, any one
who pleases may filch away the credit of their bare detection.
In my Essay: _Ueber die Bedeutung der Schädelknochen_, (Ein Programm
beym Antritt der Professur an der Gesammt-Universität zu Jena; Jena
gedruckt bey Göpfert, 1807, verlegt zu Frankfurt bey Wesche, 4to,) I
have shown that the head is none other than a vertebral column, and
that it consists of four vertebræ, which I have respectively named
Auditory, Maxillary or Lingual, Ocular and Nasal vertebra; I have also
pointed out that the maxillæ are nothing else but repetitions of arms
and feet, the teeth being their nails; all this is carried out more
circumstantially and in detail in the _Isis_, 1817, S. 1204; 1818,
S. 510., 1823. _litt. Anzeigen_ S. 353 und 441. This doctrine was at
first scoffed at and repulsed; finally, when it began to force its way,
several barefaced persons came forward, who would have made out if they
could, that the discovery was achieved long ago. The reader will not
omit to notice that the above essay appeared as my Antritts-Programm,
or Inaugural discourse, upon being appointed Professor at Jena.
In my Essay entitled _Ueber das Universum als Fortsetzung des
Sinnensystems_; Jena bey Frommann, 1808, 4to, I showed that the
Organism is none other than a combination of all the Universe's
activities within a single individual body. This doctrine has led me
to the conviction that World and Organism are one in kind, and do not
stand merely in harmony with each other. From hence was developed my
Mineral, Vegetable and Animal system, as also my philosophical Anatomy
and Physiology.
In my Essay entitled _Erste Ideen zur Theorie des Lichts, der
Finsterniss, der Farben und der Wärme_; Jena bey Frommann, 1808, 4to,
I pointed out, that the Light could be nothing but a polar tension of
the æther, evoked by a central body in antagonism with the planets;
and that the Heat were none other than the motion of this æther. This
doctrine appears to be still in a state of fermentation.
In my Essay entitled _Grundzeichnung des natürlichen Systems der Erze_;
Jena bey Frommann, 1809, 4to, I arranged the Ores for the first time,
_not_ according to the Metals, but agreeably to their _combinations_
with Oxygen, Acids, and Sulphur, and thus into _Oxyden_, _Halden_,
_Glanzen_, and _Gediegenen_. This has imparted to the recent science of
Mineralogy its present aspect or form.
In the first edition of my _Lehrbuch der Naturphilosophie_, 1810
and 1811, I sought to bring these different doctrines into mutual
connexion, and to show, forsooth, that the Mineral, Vegetable, and
Animal classes are not to be arbitrarily arranged in accordance with
single or isolated characters, but to be based upon the cardinal organs
or anatomical systems, from which a firmly established number of
classes must of necessity result; moreover, that each of these classes
commences or takes its starting-point from below, and consequently
that all of them pass parallel to each other. This parallelism is now
pretty generally adopted, at least in England and France, though with
sundry modifications, which, from the principles being overlooked or
neglected, are based at random, and are not therefore to be approved
of. As in chemistry, where the combinations follow a definite numerical
law, so also in Anatomy the organs, in Physiology the functions, and
in Natural History the classes, families and even genera of Minerals,
Plants and Animals, present a similar arithmetical ratio. The genera
are indeed, on account of their great number and arbitrary erection to
the rank whose title they bear, not to be circumscribed or limited in
every case with due propriety, nor brought into their true scientific
place in the system; it is nevertheless possible to render their
parallelism with each other clear, and to prove that they by no means
form a single ascending series. If once the genera of Minerals, Plants
and Animals come to stand correctly opposite each other, a great
advantage will accrue therefrom to the science of Materia Medica; for
corresponding genera will act specifically upon each other.
These principles, which I have now carried out into detail, were
retained in the _second_, and have been also in the _third_ or
present edition of the _Physio-philosophy_, the arrangement and
serial disposition of the natural objects having, with my increase
of knowledge and concomitant views of things, been amended, enlarged
or diminished, as the case might require, especially in the Mineral,
Vegetable and Animal systems. I am very well aware that there is many
an object which does not stand in its right place; but where again is
there a single system in which this is not still more strikingly the
case? We have here dealt only with the restoration of the edifice,
wherein, after years of long and oft-repeated attempts, the furniture
may for the first time be properly distributed, without detriment to
its general bearings or ground plan.
In my _Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte_, the Mineralogical and Zoological
portions of which are out of print, but the Botanical still to be had
(Weimar, Industrie-Comptoir, 1826), I have arranged for the first
time the genera and species in accordance with the above principles,
and stated everything of vital importance respecting these matters.
This was the first attempt to frame a scientific Natural History, and
one unto which I have remained true in my last work, the _Allgemeine
Naturgeschichte_, the principles whereof I have sought to develop more
distinctly and in detail in the work now before the reader.
Thus then have I prosecuted throughout a long series of years one kind
of principle, and worked hard to perfectionate it upon all sides. Yet,
notwithstanding my endeavour to amass the manifold stores of knowledge
so requisite to an undertaking like this, I could not acquire within
the vast circuit that appertains thereunto, many things which might be
necessary unto a system extending into all matters of detail. This it
is to be hoped the reader will acknowledge, and have forbearance for
the errors, against which every one will stumble who has busied himself
throughout life with a single branch of the natural sciences. Natural
History is not a closed department of human knowledge, but presupposes
numerous other sciences, such as Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry and
Physics, with even Medicine, Geography and History; so that one must be
content with knowing only the main facts of the same, and relinquishing
the Singular to its special science. The gaps and errors in Natural
History can therefore be filled up or removed only by numerous writers
and in the lapse of time.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Conception of the Science 1
Division of the Science. Truth.
PART I. MATHESIS 5
Nothing, § 31. Something, § 50.
A. _PNEUMATOGENY_ 13
Primary Act, § 55. Primary Consciousness, § 59. God, § 61.
a. Primary Rest, § 71. b. Time, § 72. Polarity, § 76. Motion,
§ 80. Man, § 93. c. Space, § 108. Point, Line, Surface,
Globe, Rotation.
B. _HYLOGENY_ 35
a. Gravity, § 148. Matter, Æther, Heavenly Bodies. b. Light,
§ 182. c. Heat, § 198. Fire.
PART II. ONTOLOGY 49
A. _COSMOGENY_ ib.
a. Rest, Centre, § 209. Motion, Line, Planets, § 215. c. Form,
§ 231. Planetary System, Comets.
B. _STÖCHIOGENY_ 59
Condensation, § 253. Simple matters, Elements. a. Air § 282.
b. Water, § 294. c. Earth, § 303.
C. _STÖCHIOLOGY_ 68
Functions of the Elements. 1. Functions of the Æther, § 317.
a. Gravity, § 320. b. Light, § 321. Inflexion, Refraction, Reflexion,
Colours, § 354. Colours and Planets, § 379. c. Heat,
§ 385. 2. Function of the Air, § 410. Electrism. 3. Function of
the Water, § 432. Solution. 4. Function of Earth, § 438.
Crystallization.
D. _KINGDOMS OF NATURE_ 95
Individuals, § 463.
FIRST KINGDOM--MINERALS 96
I. _MINERALOGY_, § 474. Division, § 490.
a. Chemical Division 103
b. Genetic Division. Classes 106
Class I. Earth-Earths Earths.
II. Water-Earths Salts.
III. Air-Earths Inflammables.
IV. Fire-Earths Ores.
Table A to face page 120
II. _GEOLOGY_ 121
_I._ Form of the Planet, § 546. Primary Valleys. _II._
Organs of the Planet, § 570.
A. _Earths_ 127
a. Earth Formation--Primary Rocks, § 573. Granite, Gneiss,
Mica-schist, Lamination, Primary Limestone. b. Water-formation,
§ 622. Transition-rocks, Sedimentary or Stratified Rocks,
Stratified Limestone, Petrifactions or Fossil Remains.
c. Air-formation--Trap-rocks, § 681. d. Fire-formation--Volcanic
Rocks, § 690.
B. _Metallic Ores_ 148
a. Metallic Veins, § 693. b. Production of Ore, § 698. c. Poison,
§ 755. d. Magnetism, § 760. e. Earth-magnetism, § 771.
C. _Inflammables_ 166
a. Sulphur, § 801. b. Coal, § 819.
D. _Salts_ 170
a. Salt-periods, § 827. b. Chemism, § 847.
PART III. BIOLOGY 178
A. _ORGANOSOPHY_ ib.
I. _Organogeny._ Galvanism, § 867. Primary Organism, § 882.
Creation of the Organic 184
a. Elementary Body--Protoplasma or Primary Mucus, § 898.
Change. b. Form--Globe, § 926. Primary Vesicle, § 933. Infusoria,
§ 935. Theory of Generation, § 943. c. Processes of the
Organic. 1. Earth-process--Nutrition, § 964.
2. Water-process--Digestion, § 971. 3. Air-process--Respiration,
§ 977. 4. Motion, § 984.
II. _Organognosy_ 197
Division of the Organism, § 933, into Planetary and Cosmic Organism.
Processes of the Cosmic Organism, § 1014. 1. Process of Gravity,
§ 1021. 2. Process of Heat, § 1024. 3. Process of Light, § 1027.
SECOND KINGDOM--VEGETABLE KINGDOM 204
I. _PHYTOGENY_, § 1038.
A. _Planetary Organs_--Vegetable Trunk 206
I. _Tissues_, § 1055. 1. Water-organ--Cellular Tissue, § 1056.
2. Earth-organ--Vascular Tissue, § 1062. 3. Air-organ--Tracheal
Tissue, § 1065.
II. _Anatomical Systems--Sheaths_, § 1075. 1. Tracheal
System--Wood, § 1077. Vascular System--Liber, § 1080. 3. Cellular
System--Bark, § 1084.
III. _Organs--Members_, § 1086. 1. Water-organ--Root, § 1090.
Earth-organ--Stalk, § 1096. 3. Air-organ--Leaves, § 1120.
B. _Æther-Organs_--Thyrsus or Flower 228
1. Floral Envelopes, § 1187. Involucrum, Calyx, Corolla--Numerical
Law, § 1209. Coloration, § 1241. Stamen-filaments, § 1252--Anthers.
2. Pistil, § 1276. Style. 3. Seed, § 1301. 4. Fruit,
§ 1335. Fruit of the Flowerless Plants, § 1346.
II. _PHYTO-PHYSIOLOGY_ 255
I. _Functions of the Trunk._ 1. Facts.
A. Constituent Parts. a. Inorganic Bodies--Elements, § 1364.
b. Organic Bodies, § 1368.
B. Preliminary Events 259
2. Processes 262
A. Cellular Processes, § 1385. Absorption, Evaporation, Digestion.
B. Vascular Processes, § 1399. Conveyance of Sap, Mixture of Sap,
Secretion.
C. Tracheal Processes, § 1411. Inspiration, Nutrition, Oxydation.
Galvanic Process--Sap-motion, § 1443.
II. _Functions of the Floral Organs_ 272
1. Function of the Corolla--Fecundation, § 1454. Irritability.
2. Function of the Ovarium, § 1473. 3. Function of the Seed.
Germination, § 1476. Growth, § 1481. Fall of the Leaf.
III. _PHYTOLOGY_ 279
_Vegetable System_, §§ 1508-1754.
Table B opposite to page 316
THIRD KINGDOM--ANIMAL KINGDOM 318
I. _ZOOGENY_ 318
Anatomy 326
I. _Tissues_ 327
1. Point-tissue--Nervous mass, § 1801. 2. Globe-tissue--Osseous
mass, § 1825. 3. Line-tissue--Muscular mass, § 1835. 4. Vesicular
tissue, § 1846. Integument.
II. _Anatomical Systems or Sheaths_ 338
A. _Vegetative_ 339
1. Intestinal System, § 1878. 2. Cutaneous System, § 1909.
Branchiæ, Tracheæ. 3. Vascular System, § 1926. 4. Sexual
System, § 1999.
B. _Animal Systems_ 356
1. Nervous System, § 2018. Brain, Senses. 2. Osseous System,
§ 2079. Vertebral Number, § 2109. 3. Muscular System, § 2118.
III. _Organs_ 378
A. _Vegetative_ 378
1. Intestinal Organs, § 2158. 2. Vascular Organs, § 2194.
Branchiæ, Lungs, Liver, Spleen, Kidneys. 3. Respiratory Organs,
§ 2246. Coverings, Hairs. 4. Sexual Organs, § 2285. Impregnation,
§ 2315. Urinary Organs, § 2337.
B. _Animal Organs_ 404
1. Osseous Organs--Limbs, § 2370. 2. Muscular Organs, § 2398.
3. Nervous Organs, § 2405--Senses. 1. Vascular Sense--Sense
of Feeling, § 2440. 2. Intestinal Sense--Taste, § 2454. 3. Pulmonic
Sense--Smell, § 2468. 4. Osseo-Muscular Sense--Hearing,
§ 2476. 5. Nervous Sense--Vision, § 2488.
II. _PHYSIOLOGY_ 423
A. _General Functions_ 423
B. _Special Functions_ 425
I. Functions of the Tissues, § 2539--Heat.
II. Functions of the Systems 429
A. Of the Vegetal Systems. 1. Digestion, § 2571. Poisoning.
2. Respiration, § 2639. 3. Circulation, § 2655.
B. Functions of the Animal Systems 442
1. Of the Osseous System, § 2672. 2. Of the Muscular System,
§ 2686. 3. Of the Nervous System, § 2700. Mesmerism, § 2721.
Sleep, § 2736. Periodicity, § 2761.
III. _Functions of the Organs_ 455
1. _Functions of the Encephalic or Brain-Animal_ 456
A. Organs of Motion.
B. Organs of Sensation 458
1. Sense of Feeling, § 2786. Sense of Taste, § 2821. Sense of
Smell, § 2835. Auditory Sense, § 2849. Speech. Sense of
Sight, § 2902.
2. _Functions of the Sexual Animal_ 477
A. Vegetal Sexual Organs--Formation of Urine, § 2934
B. Animal Sexual Organs 480
1. Male Organs, § 2946. 2. Female Parts, § 2952. Mammæ.
Development of the Fruit or Foetus, § 2981. Parallelism of the
Foetus with the Animal Classes, § 3034. Periods of Life, § 3502.
III. _ZOOLOGY_ 494
A. Division into Provinces 501
B. Division into Circles 502
C. Division into Classes 511
First Province, Somatozoa (Rumpfthiere) Splanchnozoa; 511
including the three Circles of Intestinal, Vascular, and
Respiratory Animals, or Protozoa, Conchozoa, and Ancyliozoa;
with their contained Classes up to 568
Metamorphosis of Insects, § 3291. Parallelism, § 3299.
Relationships, § 3301.
Second Province, Cephalozoa, (Kopfthiere); 544
including the two circles of Sarcose and Sense-Animals;
with their contained Classes up to 568
D. Division into Orders and Families 569
Of those included within the Classes of the First Province or
Splanchnozoa;
with their Tabular Co-arrangement up to 614
Of those comprised by the Classes of the Second Province or
Sarcozoa; with their Tabular Co-arrangement up to 653
IV. _PSYCHOLOGY_ 654
A. _Spiritual Functions of the Somato- or Dermatozoa_ 654
B. _Spiritual Functions of the Cephalozoa_ 658
ERRATA AND CORRIGENDA.
Page 4, § 30, _read_ upon the primary proposition of mathematics
or the axiom.
5, § 35, _for_ magnitudes _read_ quantities.
8, § 39, _for_ Manifold _read_ Different.
11, § 49, _l._ 10, _for_ elevating themselves in power,
_read_ becoming suppressed.
§ 50, _l._ 4, dele the second --.
12, _l._ 1, _for_ magnitudes _read_ quantities;
_l._ 5, _for_ -- _read_ 0.
§ 52, _for_ emerged _read_ been evolved out of
nothing, or been produced from it by addition; but it is, &c.
§ 54, _for_ removing _read_ suppressing.
14, § 59, _l._ 8, _for_ posits itself _read_ itself
posits.
16, _for_ presentation _read passim_, representation.
32, § 134, _for_ Disintegrated _read_ Dissevered.
32, § 137, _for_ never _read_ nowhere.
37, § 161, _l._ 7, _for_ it _read_ there.
38, § 164, _for_ inventive _read passim throughout
Part I._ postulate.
39, _l._ 1, _for_ and the axiom is _read_
the axiom being.
44, § 195, _l._ 15, _for_ that it may shine _read_
upon which it shines.
50, § 214, last line, _for_ darker _read_ dark.
59, § 253, _read_ heavy and material.
61, § 269, 1 and 2, _for_ caloric _read_ hydrogen,
_and for_ hydrogen _read_ carbon.
80, § 388, _for_ nitrogen _read_ hydrogen.
112, _l._ 6, _for_ Terpentin _read_ Serpentin;
_l._ 7 from bottom, _for_ Calces _read_
Calcareous earths.
124, § 562, _for_ the recent _read_ new.
139, § 633-4, _for_ disintegrations _read_ dispersions.
159, § 761, _for_ metallic read _magnetic_.
186, § 914, _for_ heat of blood _read_ blood-heat.
209, § 1060, _read_ constantly circulate therein.
213, § 1077, _l._ 6, _for_ but before _read_ and
whereas; _l._ 7, _for_ have _read_ previously,
_and dele_ it has then, _and read_ the appearance is now.
228, § 1161, _read_ has been reproduced _after_ trunk,
_and dele_ being.
249, § 1314, _for_ umbilicus _read_ hilum, _and for_
cause _read_ basis.
307, § 1679, _instead of_ stipaceous _read_ hypogynous.
308, § 1687, _l._ 2, _read_ Stielblumen or Hypogynes.
320, § 1763, _after_ light-æther _read_ from the dead mass, &c.
327, § 1800, _for_ substance, &c., _read_ contents become, &c.
328-9, _for_ Myxozoa _read_ Protozoa, _and for_ Medusæ
_read_ Acalephæ _here and passim_.
330, _l._ 2, _after the word_ radiating _read_ æther.
332, § 1824, _for_ substance _read_ contents, _and_
§ 1827, _for_ substance _read_ mass.
334, § 1837, _read_ upon the middle rate of oxydation.
327, _l._ 5, _transpose the words_ matter _and_ spirit.
345, § 1928, _read_ elemental matter.
346, § 1931, _read_ at certain points, _after_ each other.
354, § 1992, _read_ through the medium of the gills, the water
through that of the intestine, &c.
355, § 2006, _for_ along with _read_ which belong to the
category of.
361, § 2039, _read_ plexus-forming ramules; § 2046, _for_
is imparted _read_ furnishes us, _and for_ by
_read_ with.
362, § 2050, _for_ oesophageal _read_ pharyngeal,
_passim_, _as also_, pharynx _for_ oesophagus.
372, § 2114, _for_ enter into the composition of _read_
appertain to; _and for_ Mammalia _read_ Thricozoa.
376, § 2141, _read_ the bone, the fluid which has been
secreted from it and rigidified.
381, § 2176, _for the last word_ cyst _read_ cyst,
_hic et passim_.
386, § 2211, _read_ bivalve Mollusca, _passim throughout
Zoogeny_.
393, _l._ 1, _read_ exsecernent.
398, § 2313, _read_ Snail-type of organization.
405, § 2371, _read_, or the integument _after_ respiratory
organ.
408, § 2387, _for_ carnivorous _read_ false molars;
_for_ incisor _read_ laniary molar; _for_
premolar _read_ second, _and for_ tuberculous
_read_ third true molar.
493, § 3054, _for_ testaceous Mollusca _read_ Conchozoa
or Shell-animals.
515, § 3170, _for_ stock _read_ trunk.
544, § 3301, _after_ analogy _read_ which at best is but
a word of random definition.
532, § 3256, _read_ pharyngeal or pneumogastric nerves, _to
end of paragraph_. _For the words_ evolution _and_
evolved, _read passim in the Botanical and Zoological parts_,
perfection _and_ perfected, _as the text may require_.
PHYSIO-PHILOSOPHY.
INTRODUCTION.
CONCEPTION OF THE SCIENCE.
1. Philosophy, as the science which embraces the principles of the
universe or world, is only a logical, which may perhaps conduct us to
the real, conception.
2. The universe or world is the reality of mathematical ideas, or, in
simpler language, of mathematics.
3. Philosophy is the recognition of mathematical ideas as constituting
the world, or the repetition of the origin of the world in
consciousness.
4, 5. Spirit is the motion of mathematical ideas. Nature, their
manifestation.
6. The philosophy of Spirit is the representation of the movements of
ideas in consciousness.
7. The philosophy of Nature that of the phenomena or manifestations of
ideas in consciousness.
8. The world consists of two parts: of one apparent, real, or material;
and one non-apparent, ideal, spiritual, in which the material is not
present, or which is naught in relation to the material.
9. There are, accordingly, two parts or divisions of Philosophy, viz.
Pneumato-and Physio-philosophy.
10. Physio-philosophy has to show how, and in accordance indeed with
what laws, the Material took its origin; and, therefore, how something
derived its existence from nothing. It has to portray the first periods
of the world's development from nothing; how the elements and heavenly
bodies originated; in what method by self-evolution into higher and
manifold forms, they separated into minerals, became finally organic,
and in Man attained self-consciousness.
11. Physio-philosophy is, therefore, the generative history of
the world, or, in general terms, the History of Creation, a name
under which it was taught by the most ancient philosophers, viz. as
Cosmogony. From its embracing the universe, it is plainly the Genesis
of Moses.
12. Man is the summit, the crown of nature's development, and must
comprehend everything that has preceded him, even as the fruit includes
within itself all the earlier developed parts of the plant. In a word,
Man must represent the whole world in miniature.
13. Now since in Man are manifested self-consciousness or spirit,
Physio-philosophy has to show that the laws of spirit are not different
from the laws of nature; but that both are transcripts or likenesses of
each other.
14. Physio-and Pneumato-philosophy range, therefore, parallel to each
other.
15. Physio-philosophy, however, holds the first rank,
Pneumato-philosophy the second: the former, therefore, is the ground
and foundation of the latter, for nature is antecedent to the human
spirit.
16. Without Physio-philosophy, therefore, there is no
Pneumato-philosophy, any more than a flower is present without a stem,
or an edifice without foundation.
17. The whole of philosophy depends, consequently, upon the
demonstration of the parallelism that exists between the activities of
Nature and of Spirit.
DIVISION OF THE SCIENCE.
18. It will be shown in the sequel that the Spiritual is antecedent to
nature. Physio-philosophy must, therefore, commence from the spirit.
19. It will also be shown in the sequel that the whole Animal Kingdom,
e. g. is, none other than the representation of the several activities
or organs of Man; naught else than Man disintegrated. In like manner
nature is none other than the representation of the individual
activities of the spirit. As, therefore, Zoology can be termed the
Science of the Conversion of Man into the Animal Kingdom, so may
Physio-philosophy be called the Science of the Conversion of Spirit
into Nature.
20. Physio-philosophy is divisible, therefore, into three parts. The
_first_ of these treats of spirit and its activities; the _second_, of
the individual phenomena, or things of the world; the _third_, of the
continuous operation of spirit in the individual things.
The first division is the doctrine of the _Whole_ (de Toto)--_Mathesis_.
The second, that of _Singulars_ (de Entibus)--_Ontology_.
The third, that of the _Whole in the Singulars_ (de Toto in
Entibus)--_Biology_.
21. The Science of the Whole must divide into two doctrines; into that
of immaterial totalities--_Pneumatogeny_; and into that of material
totalities--_Hylogeny_.
Ontology teaches us the phenomenon of matter. The first phenomenon of
this are the heavenly bodies comprehended by _Cosmogony_; these develop
themselves further, and divide into the elements--_Stochiogeny_.
From these elements the Earth element develops itself still further,
and divides into minerals--_Mineralogy_; these minerals unite into one
collective body, and this is _Geogeny_.
The Whole in Singulars is the living or _Organic_, which again divides
into plants and animals.
Biology, therefore, divides into _Organogeny_, _Phytosophy_ and
_Zoosophy_.
After this division of the subject the question first of all arises,
what is science, provided there is one.
TRUTH.
22. Science is a series of necessarily inter-dependent and consecutive
propositions, which rest upon a certain fundamental proposition.
23. Now, if anything be certain it can only be _one_ in number. If,
then, there be only _one_ certainty, there can also be only _one_
science, from which all the rest must be derived.
24. The Mathematical is certain, and, by virtue of this character, it
stands also alone. Mathematics is the only true science, and thus the
primary science, the Mathesis, or Knowledge simply, as it was called
by the ancients. The fundamental propositions of mathematics must,
therefore, be fundamental propositions for all other sciences also.
25. Physio-philosophy is only a science when it is reducible to, i. e.
can be placed upon an equal footing with, mathematics. Mathematics is
the universal science; so also is Physio-philosophy, although it is
only a part, or rather but a condition of the universe; both are one,
or mutually congruent.
26. Mathematics is, however, a science of mere forms without substance.
Physio-philosophy is, therefore, Mathematics endowed with substance.
27. The substance of Physio-philosophy must be of one kind with the
form of Mathematics.
28. The certainty of mathematical propositions depends upon no
proposition being essentially different from another. Though there may
be much that is diversified or heterogeneous, there is nothing new in
Mathematics.
For to prove a mathematical proposition is to show (or demonstrate)
that it is equivalent, i. e. of the same kind with another proposition.
All mathematical propositions must, consequently, resemble a first
proposition.
29. Physio-philosophy must also show that all its propositions, or that
all things, resemble each other, and, finally, some first proposition
or thing.
30. These natural propositions or natural things must, however,
resemble also mathematical propositions, and depend, after all, upon
the primary proposition of mathematics or the axiom.
Now then comes the question, what is the first principle of
Mathematics?
PART I.
MATHESIS--OF THE WHOLE.
NOTHING.
31. The highest mathematical idea, or the fundamental principle of all
mathematics is the zero = 0.
The whole science of mathematics depends upon zero. Zero alone
determines the value in mathematics.
32. Zero is in itself nothing. Mathematics is based upon nothing, and,
consequently, arises out of nothing.
33. Out of nothing, therefore, it is possible for something to arise,
for mathematics, consisting of propositions, is a something in relation
to 0. Mathematics itself were nothing if it had none other than its
highest principle zero. In order, therefore, that mathematics may
become a real science, it must, in addition to its highest principle,
subdivide into a number of details, namely, first of all into
numbers, and, finally, into propositions. What is tenable in regard
to mathematics must be equally so of all the sciences; they must all
resemble mathematics.
34. The first act towards realization or the becoming something, is an
origination of Many. All reality can, accordingly, manifest itself only
in multiplicity.
That which belongs to the Many is a Definite; this again is a Limited;
the Limited is a Finite. The Finite only is real.
The question now arises, how it happens that mathematics becomes a
multiplicity, or, what is the same thing, a reality, a something.
35. The reality of mathematics consists in the universality of its
quantities; viz. numbers or figures. Every number, and every thing
which belongs to mathematics, can be derived from no other source than
zero.
Mathematical multiplicity, or its reality, must have proceeded,
therefore, out of zero.
36. Zero, however, contains no number and no figure really in itself;
it contains, forsooth, neither 1 nor 2, neither a point nor a line
within itself. The Singulars or details cannot, therefore, reside in
a real, but only an ideal manner in zero; or, in other words, not
_actually_, but only _potentially_. The conditions here are the same
as with all mathematical ideas. We may conceive, e. g., an idea or
definition of a triangle in so general a sense that it shall comprehend
all triangles, without, however, a definite triangle being actually
intended, or without even a triangle actually existing. In order that
the idea of the triangle be realized, it must become a definite, in
other words, an obtuse or an acute triangle. In short, the idea of the
triangle must multiply itself, be self-evolved, or else it is as naught
in reference to mathematics, or only a geometrical zero.
The individual objects or figures of mathematics thus attain existence,
so far only as the idea comprising them emerges out of itself and
assumes an individual character.
It is clear that all individual triangles taken together closely
resemble the ideal triangle, or, to express the same in more general
terms, that the Real is equivalent to the Ideal, that the former
is but the latter which has become dissevered and finite, and that
the aggregate of every Finite is equivalent to the Ideal. This will
probably be rendered still more distinct by the example of ice and
water. The crystals of ice are nothing else than water bounded by
definite lines. So, also, are the Real and Ideal no more different
from each other than ice and water; both of these, as is well known,
are essentially one and the same, and yet are different, the diversity
consisting only in the form. It will be shown in the sequel that
everything which appears to be essentially different from another, is
so only in the form.
The Real and Ideal are one and the same, only under two kinds of form.
The latter is the same under an indefinite, eternal, single form; but
the Real is also the same, yet under the form of quantity, and, as
will be shown, of multiplicity. An infinity resides in both; in the
Real an endlessness of individual forms; in the Ideal but one endless
form; in the latter case an eternity, in the former an infinity. The
quantity and multiplicity of the whole of mathematics is contained in
the same manner in the 0, that the quantity and multiplicity of the
triangles are in the ideal or primary triangle. Mathematics is a system
of nullities or nothings, and this admits of being easily proved.
37. Zero is indeed the universality of mathematics, this, however,
is not real, but only ideal. Every number issues out of zero, like
the multiplicity of the real triangles out of the primary triangle.
This progression of numbers out of zero takes place through a process
of becoming determinate and limited; just as the real triangles are
only definitions of the absolute triangle. The process of becoming
determined is identical with becoming a Finite; becoming real is called
becoming finite. Mathematical singulars or numbers can, therefore, be
nothing else than zero disintegrated, or rendered real by determination.
What zero is in infinite intensity, that are numbers in endless
extensity. Zero is of two forms: under the ideal it is mere intensity;
under the real mere extensity, or a series of numbers. The latter is
only expanded intensity; the former, extensity concentrated on the
point; both are, consequently, one and the same in toto. Numbers are
identical with zero; they are zero in a state of extension, while
zero is equivalent to numbers in a state of intensity. The sense
in which numbers are said to come out of zero is, therefore, very
clear; they have not issued forth from zero as if they had previously
resided individually therein, but the zero has emerged out of itself,
has itself become apparent, and then was it a finite zero, a number.
So, also, does the idea of a circle become a real circle, not from
the latter emerging from the former, but from this itself becoming
manifest. The individual circle is a manifestation or phenomena of the
spiritual circle.
38. All realization, therefore, is not the origin of a something that
has not previously been; it is only a manifestation, a process of
extension taking place in the idea.
Thus the Real does not arise out of the Ideal, but is the Ideal itself
in a condition of definition and limitation, as are, e. g. the actual
triangle or the actual circle. If, then, the Ideal and Real be one,
everything is necessarily identical, and this identity dominates not
merely between the Ideal and Real in a general sense, but between all
individual members of the Real.
39. The identity of every Different, or of all things among themselves
and with the highest unity, is the _essence_ of things. The limitation
or definition of the Ideal is their _form_. Limitation is the
Impartient of form.
40. Limitation is originally only a quantitative relation, e. g. the
size of the angle in a triangle; later on it becomes also a relation of
direction or of position.
In both cases the limitation is only an ideal relation. Realization
also takes place, therefore, only in an ideal manner; and the Real is
therefore ideal, not simply as it regards its _form_, but also its
_essence_. Every Plural resembles itself and the highest principle in
essence; or, in other words, all Singulars are united through essence
with the highest One. All diversity of the Plural resides merely in the
form, limitation or manifestation. The one unchanging essence possesses
one ideal form, which is that of pure unity, and the same essence has
a limitation, a real form, which is that of subdivision. There is only
one essence in all things, the 0, the highest identity; but there are
infinitely numerous forms.
Numbers are naught else than different forms of the one unchangeable
essence, namely, the 0.
If, then, all numbers are only zero in a state of extension, and are
consequently identical with it, the question arises, what are the
first finitings of zero, or as what does it appear when it is no
longer merely ideal or indefinite; in short, what is the first form of
the real zero, or of the essence in general?
ESSENCE OF NOTHING.
41. The ideal zero is absolute unity, or monas; it is not a
singularity, such as one individual thing, or as the number 1; but an
indivisibility, a numberlessness, in which neither 1 nor 2, neither a
line nor a circle can be found; in short, an unity without distinction,
an homogeneity, brightness, or translucency, a pure identity.
42. The mathematical monas is _eternal_. It succumbs to no definitions
of time and space, is neither finite nor infinite, neither great nor
small, neither quiescent nor moved; but it is and it is not all this.
That is the conception of eternity.
Mathematics is thus in possession of an eternal principle.
43. Since all the sciences are equivalent to mathematics, nature must
also possess an eternal principle.
The principle of nature, or of the universe, must be of one and the
same kind with the principle of mathematics. For there cannot be two
kinds of monades, nor of eternities, nor of certainties. The highest
unity of the universe is thus the Eternal. The Eternal is one and
the same with the zero of mathematics. The Eternal and zero are only
denominations differing in accordance with their respective sciences,
but which are essentially one.
44. The Eternal is the _nothing_ of Nature.
As the whole of mathematics emerges out of zero, so must everything
which is a Singular have emerged from the Eternal or nothing of Nature.
The origin of the Singular is nothing else than a manifestation of the
Eternal. Thereby unity, brightness, homogeneity are lost, and converted
into multiplicity, obscurity, diversity.
Unity posited manifoldly is an expansion without termination, but one
that always remains the same.
Realization or manifestation is an expansion of the Eternal.
FORMS OF NOTHING.
45. The first form of the expansion or manifestation of the
mathematical monas, or of 0 is +-. The +-is nothing else than the
definition of 0. 0 is the reduction of the positive and negative series
of numbers, upon which the whole of arithmetic depends. A series of
numbers is, however, nothing else than a repetition of a + 1 or a-1;
consequently, the whole of arithmetic reduces itself to + 1-1.
What, however, is a + 1, or-1? Obviously nothing else than a single +
or-. The figure is quite superfluous, and only indicates how often +
or-has been assumed; instead, therefore, of + 1 we can posit +; instead
of-1 simply-. The series + 1 + 1 + 1 is synonymous with + + +; or
instead of 3 we may posit + + +, and so on for every figure ad libitum.
The figures are nothing more than shorter signs for the two highest
mathematical forms or ideas of numbers. Numbers are nothing different
from the ideas of numbers; they are the latter themselves, only several
times posited. Essentially numbers do not exist, but only their two
ideas. These ideas, however, exist an infinite number of times.
Multiplicity or _real_ infinity is, accordingly, nothing special or
particular, but only an arbitrary repetition of the Ideal, an incessant
positing of the idea. The idea posited is reality, non-posited it is =
0.
46. The first multiplicity is duality, +-. This duality alters nothing
in the essence of the monas, for +-is = 0. It is the monas itself only
under another form. In multiplication it is thus the form alone that
changes.
There are many forms, but not many essences.
47. The first or primary duality is not, however, a double unity, both
members of which are of equal rank, but an antagonism, disunion, or
_diversity_. Many diversities are _multiplicity_. The Many is thus
complex. The first form is not therefore a simple division of zero or
the primary unity, but an antagonistic positing of itself, a becoming
manifold.
48. Every Finite is in the same manner only the self-definition
of the Eternal. The Eternal becomes, accordingly, real, by binary
self-division. When the Eternal is manifested, it is either a positive
or negative. The whole of arithmetic is nothing else than a ceaseless
act of positing and negating, of affirming and denying.
All realization is nothing else than the act of positing and negating.
The act of positing and negating of the Eternal is called realization.
49. Positing and negating is, however, an _act_ or function. Arithmetic
is, therefore, a ceaseless process of acting or performing. Numbers are
_acts_ of the primary idea, or, properly speaking, stationary points
of its function, and hence proceeds a division into the two ideas +
and -. If these remain always alone nothing is added to them. They
alone produce the whole science of arithmetic, and simply because they
are never exhausted by the act of positing themselves repeatedly, but
capable after this of again becoming suppressed. Since + is
in essence nothing else than a simple positing, a mere affirmation,
and-a mere suppression of this affirmation, a negation; so is the
positive unity = 1 nothing but an affirmation once declared, and
the whole series of numbers is a reiterated affirmation. The act of
affirmation alone gives the number, and the latter is thus the definite
quantity devoid of intrinsic value. Bare affirmation alone without
reference to any substance is unity, duality, &c.
SOMETHING.
50. Still, however, there must be something, which is posited and
negatived. The form must have a substance.
This something is the primary idea, or the very Eternal of mathematics,
the zero; for + - is = 0. The + is naught else than zero affirmed;
the - naught else than this + 0 negatived = - 0. Now since an
affirmation once declared is = 1, so are unity and zero identical. Zero
differs only from finite unity in that it is not affirmed.
51. The - is not simply the want of affirmation, but its explicit
abstraction. The + presupposes the 0; the - the + and 0; the 0,
however, presupposes neither + nor-. Purely negative quantities are,
as is known, a nonentity, because they can only bear reference to
positive quantities. The - is, indeed, the retroversion of + into 0; yet
alone, therefore, it is not perfectly equal to 0. It is a retrovertent,
and consequently the second _act_, which presupposes the positive. By
the - we know what is not; the 0 is, however, a nothing in every respect.
The - is the _copula_ between 0 and +.
52. If the + is the 0 posited, so is it a nothing posited or
determined. This position is, however, a number, and therefore a
mathematical something. The nothing thus becomes a something, a Finite,
a Real, through the simple positing of itself, and the something
becomes a nothing by the removal of this self-position. The nothing
itself is, however, the mere neglect of its self-position. The
something, the + -, has consequently not arisen or been evolved out
of nothing, or been produced from it by addition; but it is nothing
itself; the whole undivided nothing has become unity. The nothing
_once_ posited as nothing is = 1. We cannot speak of production or
evolution in this case; but of the complete identity and uniformity of
the nothing with the something; it is a virgin product or birth.
53. Zero _must_ be _endlessly_ positing itself, for in every respect it
is indefinite or unlimited, eternal. The number of finite singularities
must, therefore, pass into the Infinite.
54. The whole of Arithmetic is nothing but the endless repetition of
nothing, an endless positing and suppressing of nothing.
We can become acquainted with nothing but the nothing, for the Original
of our knowledge is the 0.
There is no other science than that which treats of nothing.
Every Real, if it were such in itself, could not be known, because
the possibilities of its properties would pass into the Infinite. The
nothing alone is cognizable, because it has only a single property,
namely, that of having none; concerning which knowledge no doubt can be
entertained.
A.--_PNEUMATOGENY._
PRIMARY ACT.
55. The + - or, in other words, numbers are acts or functions. Zero
is, consequently, the primary act. Zero is, therefore, no _absolute_
nothing, but an act without substratum. Generally speaking there is,
therefore, _no_ nothing; the mathematical nothing is itself an _act_,
consequently a something. The nothing is only postulate.
56. An act devoid of substratum is a spiritual act. Numbers are,
accordingly, not positions and negations of an absolute nothing, but of
a spiritual act.
57. The zero is an eternal act; numbers are repetitions of this eternal
act, or its halting points, like the steps in progression. With zero
the Eternal therefore originates directly, or both are only different
expressions for one and the same act, according with the difference
of the science wherein they are employed. Mathematics designates its
primary act by the name of zero; Philosophy by that of Eternal. It
is an error to believe that numbers were absolute nothings; they are
acts and consequently realities. While numbers in a mathematical sense
are positions and negations of Nothing, in the philosophical they are
positions and negations of the Eternal. Everything which is real,
posited, finite, has become this out of numbers; or, more strictly
speaking, every Real is absolutely nothing else than a number. This
must be the sense entertained of numbers in the Pythagorean doctrine,
namely, that everything or the whole universe had arisen from numbers.
This is not to be taken in merely a quantitative sense, as it has
hitherto been erroneously, but in an intrinsic sense, as implying
that all things are numbers themselves, or the acts of the Eternal.
The essence in numbers is naught else than the Eternal. The Eternal
only is or exists, and nothing else is when a number exists. There
is, therefore, nothing real but the Eternal itself; for every Real,
or everything that is, is only a number and only exists by virtue of
a number. Every Singular is nothing for itself, but the Eternal is in
it, or rather it is itself only the Eternal, though not the Eternal in
itself, but affirmed or negatived. The existence of the Singular is
not its own existence, but only that of the Eternal subjected to an
arbitrary repetition; for the act of being and affirming are of one
kind.
58. The continuance of Being is a continuous positing of the Eternal,
or of nothing, a ceaseless process of becoming real in that which is
not. There exists nothing but nothing, nothing but the Eternal, and all
individual existence is only a fallacious existence. All individual
things are monades, nothings, which have, however, become determined.
The Eternal must posit without cessation, for otherwise it would be an
actual nothing, while in fact it is an act; but it must incessantly
suppress also this position, else it would be only a finite act, or an
act which had only one kind of direction, that of affirmation + + + +,
and so on, which represents only the half of arithmetic. The totality
of the Finite is, therefore, of eternal duration also: the Singular,
however, issues forth and disappears like the numbers in arithmetic.
The eternal duration of the Finite consists, however, only in ceaseless
repetition. Such an Eternal is to be distinguished therefore from the
Primary eternal, and is called the Infinite. The totality of finite
things is not therefore eternal, but only _infinite_.
PRIMARY CONSCIOUSNESS.
59. Two tendencies are present in the primary act, both of which being
inseparable are one in kind. It has the tendency to posit, and also
to suppress, itself. The unity strives unto binary division or to
antagonism, even as the 0 strives to produce + or-. While the primary
act itself posits, it does this indeed out of its own strength, and
that which it posits is also none other than itself; it itself posits
i. e. _actively_; and is itself posited i. e. _passively_; it itself
posits itself, is the self-position of itself; for + is nothing else
than 0 self-posited. The positing and posited act are of one kind; the
latter, however, is the Real, the Finite; the former the Ideal, the
Eternal. Both are distinguished from each other through this only,
that the Real is the posited, numbered, and consequently determined
act; the ideal, however, the positing, consequently numbering and thus
undetermined act. While, however, the + is nothing else than 0, it must
necessarily bear a relation to it, and thus retrograde into the 0. This
retrogression is an act in the reverse direction, or what is indicated
in mathematics by negation. The-has been therefore necessarily granted
with the +, else the + would not be represented as = to 0. The act of
positing is therefore at the same time also an act of negation. So soon
as the 0 is or exists, it is = +-. The realization of the Eternal is
accordingly a complete antagonism of itself. For 0 is equal to +-, not
simply = + or = to-.
60. The being of the Eternal is therefore a _self-manifestation_. Every
Singular is nothing but a self-manifestation; since all numbers are
only positions of zero or of +, which can never be without-. In every
essence there are two, but the two are the one essence itself, which
posits itself by division. The Positing of the Eternal in the sense in
which it has been hitherto adopted, namely, as a realization of the
same, is not merely an act of positing, not an indeterminate Positing,
but an antagonism of itself. The zero is simply the indeterminate
Positing, or the negative Positing; but the number, or the real is the
antagonism of zero, the +-, or the self-manifestation. The 0 cannot be
thought of for itself alone without the +; the latter, however, not
without 0, as well as the-also not without 0; for it is the suppression
of the posited 0, namely, the +. Every act of self-manifestation is
therefore twofold, a manifestation (= +), but a manifestation of
itself, consequently a retrogression into 0 (=-). Through negation the
Finite becomes united with the Eternal. Every disappearance of the
Finite is a retrogression into the Eternal; for it must return to
whence it came. It has arisen out of nothing, is itself the existing
nothing; it must therefore retrograde again into the nothing.
GOD.
61. The self-manifestation of the primary act is _self-consciousness_.
The eternal self-consciousness is God.
62. The continued act of self-consciousness, or becoming self-conscious
repeated, is called _representation_. God is therefore comprehended
in ceaseless representation. Representations are single acts of
self-consciousness. Single acts, however, are real things. All real
things, however, are the world. The world therefore originates with the
representations of the Eternal.
63. The representations are, however, manifested or attain only reality
through _expression_. The world is therefore the language of God; the
creation of the world the speaking of God. "God spake, and it was."
It is not merely said, God thought and it was. Thought belongs merely
to spirit; in so far, however, as it becomes apparent, it is a word,
and the sum of all apparent thoughts is speech. This is the created,
realized system of thought. The thought is only the idea of the world,
but speech is the idea actualized.
64. As thought differs from speaking, so does God from the world.
Our world consists in our apparent thoughts, namely, the words. The
universe is the _language_ of God. So far as the thoughts lie at the
foundation of the words, it can be said, that our world were the play
of our thoughts, and the actual world that of God's. The word has
become world. Worldly things have no more reality for God, than our
words or our language for us. We carry a world within us while we
think; we posit or create a world without us while we speak. Thus God
carries the world within himself while he thinks; he posits the same
without himself or creates it, while he speaks. In so far as thought
necessarily precedes speech, it may be said, that there would have been
no world, if God had not thought. In the same sense it may be also
said, that all things are nothing but representations, thoughts, ideas
of God. So soon as God thinks and speaks is there a real thing. To
speak and to create are one. All, that we perceive, are words, thoughts
of God; we are ourselves nothing else than such words or thoughts of
God, consequently his metatypes or images, in as far as we unite in
ourselves the whole system of speech. There is therefore no being
without self-consciousness. That only which thinks is (for itself);
that which does not think is not for itself, but only for some other
consciousness. The world differs from God as doth our speech from us.
The self-consciousness of God is independent of the world, even as our
self-consciousness is independent of our speech.
65. The divine laws are also the laws of the world; this has therefore
been created and governed in accordance with eternal and immutable laws.
66. Physio-philosophy is the history of creation; the creation,
however, is the language of God. The system of thought, however,
lies necessarily at the foundation of the system of speech. Now the
science of the laws of thought is called logic; physio-philosophy is
therefore a divine doctrine of speech or a divine logic. The laws of
speech instruct us in the genesis of language. Physio-philosophy is,
therefore, the science of the genesis of the world, or Cosmogony.
FORM OF GOD--TRIUNITY.
67. As the complete principle of mathematics consists of three ideas,
so also does the primary principle of nature, or the Eternal. The
primary principle of mathematics is 0; so soon, however, as it is
actual, is it + and-; or the primary idea resolves itself in being at
once into two ideas, each of which resembles the other in essence,
but differs from it in form. Thus it is here one and the same essence
under three forms, or three are one. Now that which holds good of
mathematical principles, must hold good also of the principles of
nature. The primary act is manifested, or operates under three forms,
which correspond to the 0, + and-.
These three ideas of the Eternal are all equivalent to each other, are
the same primary act, each of them being whole and undivided, but each
otherwise posited. The positing primary act is the whole Eternal; the
posited is likewise the whole Eternal, and that which is subtractive,
retrogressive, combining the two first, is also the whole Eternal.
Although all three ideas are equivalent to each other, still the
positing idea ranks first, the posited second, and the combining third;
not as if they had first arisen successively (this is impossible, for
they are coexistent, namely, before all time), nor as if they occupied
different positions (for they are everywhere); but only according to
their order and value. How one may be three and three one, is thus
rendered comprehensible only by mathematics.
68. The first idea is the original, that therefore which is thoroughly
independent, which having arisen from and being based upon itself,
has consequently emerged from nothing else; in short, it is the
eternal idea, like the mathematical 0 = _Monas aoristos_. Everything
is possible with it; it can propose and solve all problems, knows
therefore everything and creates everything. It is the generative,
creative and paternal idea.
69. The two other ideas have emerged out of the first, although
apparently equivalent to it; yea, they have themselves issued out
of themselves. The second idea is, therefore, _Dyas aoristos_, and
corresponds to the mathematical +; the third idea is the _Trias
aoristos_, and corresponds to the mathematical-, so that by the three
the primary trinity 0 +-is completed. The first idea labours or, what
is more, rejoices from all eternity to convert itself into the two
others. The action or the life of God consists in eternally manifesting
itself, eternally contemplating itself in unity and duality, eternally
dividing itself and still remaining one. The second idea has issued
next from the first, and is therefore related to it as Son is to
Father, when the ideas are viewed as personified. The third idea has
emerged conjointly from the second and first, and forms therefore the
spiritual union, the mutual love between both. It may be therefore
simply called Ghost or Spirit, if it is thought of as personified.
70. Since every Singular, having been produced through the primary
trinity, is only the expressed word of the primary trinity, so also
must their qualities be recognizable in the same. The Singular is not
simply therefore a position of one idea, but of all three. All things
have issued out of the trinity. The essence of the universe consists in
the trinity which is unity, and in the unity which is trinity; for it
is a likeness of the primary trinity. _Being_, generally, is an act,
and that, indeed, of a threefold nature. Apart from act or function
there is no _being_. That, which is called nothing, is in itself an
act, and there is, therefore, no absolute nothing. The nothing is only
something relative to a particular being. Even the mathematical zero is
not nothing, but an act. It is nothing only in reference to particular
numbers. Numbering is a repetition of one and the same act. The forms
or conditions of the primary act are Rest, Motion, and Extension or
expansion.
a. PRIMARY REST. (_First form of the Primary Act._)
71. The primary idea is the position simply without any relation, or
any antagonism; it is the oscillating resting point in the universe,
around which everything collects itself, and from which everything
emerges; the _Centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam_. The primary
idea is the substratum of everything, which will come before us in the
sequel of this work. Everything depends upon this primary essence;
all action, motion, and form issues forth from it; or rather, in all
phenomena naught else appears than the primary essence in different
stages of position, just as in all numbers naught else appears but the
zero. The primary idea is the absolute beginning. This primary idea is
the non-representable, the never apparent and yet omnipresent, idea;
but which is always withdrawing itself from our view when we imagine or
believe that we gaze upon it; in short, the Spiritual, which declares
itself in everything and yet always remains the same. The origin of all
action may be termed the primary force.
b. MOTION, TIME. (_Second form of the Primary Act._)
72. The primary idea operates only, while it posits; through positing,
however, arises a succession of positing, or numbers; positing
and successive positing are one. The function of the primary idea
consists in an eternal repetition of the essence; the primary act is
a continuous self-repeating act. Repetition of the primary act devoid
of another substratum is _Time_. Time is none other than the eternal
repetition of the positing of the Eternal, corresponding to the series
of numbers + 1 + 1 + 1 + n. Time has not been created, but has emerged
directly out of the primary act and its position; it is the function of
God himself. Something has thus already originated, which appears to
conduct us into the universe. Time is the first portal through which
the operation of God passes over into the world. Time is the infinite
succession of numbers or the mathematical nothings. The mathematising,
numbering act is Time. Numbers, however, are Singulars or finitudes,
which constitute the world.
73. Time is infinite, for it is the totality of positing; it is only
the points or numbers in it that are the Finite.
74. All things are created in time; for time is the totality of
Singulars. Time is no stationary quantity, which is always changing
itself into something new during its progressive flux. It is not a
continuous stream, but a repetition of one and the same act, namely,
the primary act, like as it were to a rolling ball, which constantly
returns upon itself. There is no endless, still less an eternal thing;
for things are only positions of time. Time itself is, however, only
repetition, and thus also a suppression of these positions. The
vicissitude of things is in fact time; if there be no change, there is
also no time. Time is an universal property of things. Exemption from
time is only in the Eternal.
75. Time, not being itself the Finite, but creating it, is not itself
a Real, but still an Ideal, a form only of the primary act, an idea,
with which finite things have been directly posited. Time is the act of
numbering; numbering is thinking; thinking is time. Our thinking is our
time. In sleep there is no time for us. God's thought is God's time;
God's time, however, is all time, consequently time of the world. Time
is not of earthly but heavenly descent or origin. In so far a divine
quality belongs to all finite things. They are divine, in so far as
they are time; terrestrial, in so far as they are evanescent moments of
time.
POLARITY.
76. Time is an action of the primary power; and all things are active
only in so far as they are filled or inspired with the idea of time.
The whole activity of things, all their forces arise out of the primary
act or primary power, are only moments of the same. There are, however,
no positive without negative numbers, consequently also no moments of
time without suppression of the same. There is, therefore, no single
force, but each is the position of + and-. A force consisting of two
principles is called _Polarity_. Time is, therefore, the primary
polarity, and polarity is manifested at the very instant in which the
creation of the world is stirring.
77. Polarity is the first force which appears in the world. If time
is eternal, polarity must also be eternal. There is no world, and in
general nothing at all without polar force.
78. Every single thing is a duplicity.
79. The law of causality is a law of polarity. Causality is valid only
in time, is only a series of numbers. Time itself has no causality.
Causality is an act of generation. The sex is rooted in the first
movement of the world.
MOTION.
80. Polarity may be viewed as a single positing of +-; if, however,
this positing repeats itself, _Motion_ originates, viz. when many
+-+-are consecutively posited, and thus the principal poles separate
from each other, as in an iron bar when magnetizing. Time is a polar
positing of the primary act, and an endless repetition of this
positing; through this originate individual things, whose succession is
motion.
81. Primary motion is the result of primary polarity. All motion has
originated from duplicity; consequently from the idea in a dynamic not
a mechanical manner. A mechanical motion, which might be produced ad
infinitum by mechanical impulses, is an absurdity. There is nowhere a
purely mechanical motion; nothing, as it is at present in the word,
has become so by impulse; an internal act, a polar tension lies at the
bottom of all motion.
82. Motion itself, however, is not twofold in character; it is unity,
but the result of duality. In time we have to distinguish the polar
act of position, and the act of repeating this position, which is
motion. Motion is the simple repetition of the polar, twofold act, or
the ceaseless separation of poles; but, as in every polar line the two
poles are in all cases together, so even is this mutual separation of
poles only a repetition of polarity.
83. Motion also is not created, but has emerged directly from the
Eternal, is the primary function itself repeated. Motion is the ever
self-manifesting, consequently progressive God.
84. Motion is thought, which is manifested as speech. Thought polarizes
the fingers. If the thought be powerful it moves them, and through
them other bodies. Speech is only a thought that has passed over into
motion. The world is the thought of God that has been translated into
motion, the _moved thought of God_--thought spoken. It is here evident
that the world is not simply the _thought_ but the _language_ of God;
for there is no action without motion; consequently no thought without
speech, and vice versâ.
85. There is no thing which were without motion, just as there is none
without time. A Finite without everlasting motion is a contradiction.
All rest in the world is only relative, is but a combined motion. There
is only rest in the Eternal, in the nothing of nature.
86. The primary motion is only possible in a circle, because it fills
every thing.
87. The motion of finite things by polarity may, in a wider sense, be
called life; for life is motion in the circle. Polarity, however, is
a constant retrogression into itself. Without life there is no being.
Nothing is, simply by virtue of being, e. g. by its mere presence; but
everything of which a being can be declared, is only, or manifests
itself, by its polar motion or by life. Being and life are inseparable
ideas. While God acts, he creates life.
88. Life is nothing new, that came first into the world, after it was
created, but an Original, an idea, a moved thought of God, the primary
act itself with all its consequences.
89. There is in the universe no vital force of its own; the individual
things lie not there some time and await the polarizing breath, but
they first _become_ through the breath of God. The _Causa existentiæ_
is life.
90. There is nothing properly dead in the world; that only is dead
which is not, only the nothing. Something can only cease to live, when
its motion ceases; this, however, ceases only when deprived of its
polarity; the polarity dissolved, however, is zero. Thus individual
things retreat into the Absolute, if they cease to live. Everything
in the world is endowed with life; the world itself is alive, and
continues only, maintains itself, by virtue of its life; just as an
organic body maintains itself, only while it is constantly being
generated anew by the vital process.
91. Every living thing is twofold in character. It is one persistent
in itself, and one immersed in the universe. In everything,
therefore, are two processes, one individualizing, vitalizing, and one
universalizing, destructive. By the process of destruction, the finite
thing seeks to become the universe itself; by the vitalizing process,
however, the variety of the universe, and yet with that to remain a
Singular. That only is truly living which represents the Eternal, and
the whole multiplicity of the universe in the _Singular_.
92. The whole in the singular is called _Individual_. The individual is
an example of computation, which admits only of being developed, from
its comprehending the whole of arithmetic in itself. Nothing individual
can persist eternally; it must eternally move itself, consequently fill
up everything, displace everything, must become itself the universe.
MAN.
93. Time consists of single acts; i. e. the life or the absolute act
does not work with one stroke, but an infinite number of times. All
acts, therefore, taken together, all finite things in time, are equal
to the primary act or the Eternal.
94. There are two totalities, a primary totality 0 +-, and a secondary,
or the summing up of all numbers 0 + n-n; the former the eternal, the
latter the finite totality, or the one the eternity, the other the
infinity.
95. The more a thing has adopted into itself of the Manifold of the
universe, by so much the more is it animated, by so much the more does
it resemble the Eternal. It is conceivable, for a finite or living
essence to unite all numbers or acts in itself, without, however,
its being the very Eternal. It would, however, be obviously the most
perfect finite essence, and, as a secondary totality, be the likeness
of the primitive; the former the compound universality, the latter the
identical.
96. Such an essence would be necessarily the highest and last,
whereunto creation could attain; for more than the universe cannot
be represented in one thing. With such an essence creation would be
closed or would terminate.
97. Since the realization of the Eternal is a becoming self-conscious,
so is the highest creature also a Self-conscious, but a Singular.
Such a creature is the finite God, or God become corporeal. God is
_Monas indeterminata_, the highest creature is _Monas determinata,
Totum determinatum_. A finite self-conscious being we call Man. Man
is an idea of God, but that in which God wholly, and in every single
act becomes an object unto himself. Man is God represented by God in
the infinity of time. God is a Man representing God in _one_ act of
self-consciousness, without time.
98. Man is God wholly manifested. God has become Man, zero has become
+-. Man is the whole of arithmetic, compacted, however, out of all
numbers; he can therefore produce numbers out of himself. Man is a
complex of all that surrounds him, namely, of element, mineral, plant
and animal.
99. The other things _below_ man are also ideas of God, but none
of these ideas is the whole representation of arithmetic. They are
only parts of the divine conscience posited in time; but man is
God, planted or posited uninjured in time. Man is the object in the
self-consciousness of God; the creatures below man are, however, the
objects only of the _consciousness_ of God. Thus, if God places before
and from himself only single qualities, there are worldly things;
if, however, God in this crowd of representations attains to his own
entire representation, then arises Man. God is = + 0-, Man = + [oo]
0-[oo], the animal is = + n 0-n. The animals are only represented
in part. The subject of self-consciousness is = + 0-; the objects,
however, are the numbers which are equivalent to this, being = [oo]
+ 3 + 2 + 1 + 0-1-2-3-[oo]. Thus if all numbers, all world-elements,
together with their perfections, occur in consciousness = + 0-, there
is a Man; if only single, and perhaps but few things, such as food,
stones, &c. (with the entire exception of the celestial bodies), enter
consciousness, there is an animal. They are represented only partly or
in a portion of the universe, but man is represented wholly or in all
its parts. Animals are fragments of man.
100. No creatures _below_ Man can possess self-consciousness. They
have, indeed, consciousness of their several acts and of their
sensations, and possess memory; but as these several acts are only
parts of the world, or of the great consciousness, and are not the
Whole, they can never become objective unto themselves, never imagine.
Animals are men, who never imagine. They are imaginative, but never
of themselves wholly; they are therefore beings who never attain to
consciousness concerning themselves. They are single accounts; Man is
the whole of mathematics.
FREEDOM.
101. An action, which is not determined by some other action, is free.
God is free, because apart from him there is none other action.
102. Man, as being an image of God, is likewise free; as being an
image of the world he is devoid of freedom. Man is, therefore, in his
primary commencement or principle free, but not in his end or object
to be attained. In the resolution Man is free, in the execution he is
not free. The mathematician can select at pleasure any proposition; but
having selected it, must solve it in accordance with necessary laws and
with definite numbers and figures. Man is a twofold being, compounded
of freedom and necessity.
RETROSPECT.
103. Hitherto we have considered simply the arithmetical relations of
the primary act and of the universe. We have shown, to wit, that all
ideas fluctuate simply under the forms of numbers; that everything was
comprised in the 0 +-. Time was only the active series of numbers;
motion was the actual arithmetical calculation, namely, the process of
reducing numbers to absolute identity, to zero.
104. Life is moreover only a mathematical problem, which, the higher
it ascends, approaches so much the nearer to absolute zero in its
attainment of the infinity of numbers, becomes so much the more endowed
with life.
105. Arithmetic is the science of the second idea, or that of time and
motion, or of life; it is, therefore, the first science; mathematics
not only begins with it, but creation also, with the becoming of time
and of life. Arithmetic is, accordingly, the truly absolute or divine
science, and therefore everything in it is also directly certain,
because everything in it resembles the Divine. Theology is arithmetic
personified.
106. Hence it follows in the most perfect manner, that every science,
if it would possess certainty, must resemble arithmetic. Now a science
always implies a science treating of certain objects; all certain
objects must, therefore, resemble the objects of arithmetic; or all
objects, of whatever denomination, whether natural or spiritual, must
correspond to arithmetical objects, consequently in idea be numbers, an
actual arithmetical problem, as it were the numbers of motion, of life.
107. A natural thing is nothing but a self-moving number; an organic or
living thing is a number moving itself out of itself, or spontaneously;
an inorganic thing, however, is a number moved by another thing; now,
as this other thing is also a real number, so then is every inorganic
thing a number moved by another number, and thus ad infinitum. The
movements in nature are only movements of numbers by numbers; even as
arithmetical computation is none other than a movement of numbers by
numbers, but with this difference, that in the latter this operates in
an ideal manner, in the former after a real.
c. FORM, SPACE. (_Third form, of the Primary Act._)
108. Viewed arithmetically every position is a number, geometrically,
however, it is a point. What the 0 is in arithmetic, the point is in
geometry; the one the arithmetical, the other the geometrical nothing.
Both sciences commence with nothing and are only different views of
nothing. The 0 is a temporal nothing (a number), the point a spatial
nothing (a figure).
109. The first motion of numbers or of points is the motion of the
primary number, the 0, or the primary act; and this motion depends upon
the multiplicity of numbers or points, upon the disintegration of the
identical primary number, upon the +-. The first motion of the primary
act is an expansion of itself into multiplicity, whereby not merely
sequence but an addition also is posited. The primary act is not simply
positing, but also posited; as the former it is time, as the latter
it is time posited universally. Time remaining stationary is _Space_.
Space is not different in essence from time, but only according to
position; it is only time resting, while this is moved, active space.
110. Space has first arisen out of time, as the third idea out of
the second, but only ideally. It has arisen out of it, while, time
being the act of positing, it is the posited; now as time posits from
eternity, so is space also from eternity and in eternity. The eternity
of space, however, depends not upon duration, but upon extension; it is
unlimited.
111-112. Space is everywhere, as time is ever. Two spaces can no more
exist than two times. There is only _one_ Eternal. Time and space are,
however, nothing special that has attained unto the Eternal, but the
Eternal itself. They are also not two kinds of qualities subsisting
near each other, but are _one in kind_. The series of numbers is
infinite, thus universal; space is consequently universal.
113. Space is an idea like time, a form of God like time; it is the
passive form, the extended 0 = + 0-.
114. All temporal things are also in space and limited. An unlimited
thing extended through the whole of space is an absurdity. God's
operation only is extended through the whole of space; it is space
itself; when he willed to act, he became time; but when he was time, he
became space.
115. Space has not been created, but has emerged out of the Eternal; it
is nothing new in the universe, nothing next to God and present with
him, but coexistent with God.
116. Single things must be both in space and in time; or a real thing
first originates, where time and space cross each other at one point;
they cross, however, everywhere, and therefore things are everywhere.
117. There is no void or empty space, no time and no place, were a
Finite could not be; for time and space are virtually the manifesting
primary act, the zero that has become thing.
POINT.
118. Time has begun with number, space with the point, with the
spatial nothing, with the zero of space. This point necessarily posits
itself "ad infinitum;" it extends itself also in all directions, and
necessarily in equal distances. Such an extended point is the _Sphere_.
119. The sphere is nothing peculiar, nothing new in the thoughts of
God, but only the point expanded, while this again is but a contracted
sphere, just as the totality of numbers is an expanded 0, and this
their contracted sphere.
120. Space is spherical, and, indeed, an infinite sphere. The sphere
has been posited with space, and consequently from eternity; it is also
an idea, and that, indeed, the total idea; for time and space have in
it been posited together.
121. For God to become real, he must appear under the form of the
sphere. There is no other form for God. God manifesting is an infinite
sphere.
122. The sphere is, therefore, the most perfect form; for it is the
primary, the divine form. Angular forms are imperfect. The more
spherical a thing is in form, by so much the more perfect and divine is
it. The Inorganic is angular, the Organic spherical.
123. The universe is a globe, and everything, which is a Total in the
universe, is a globe.
LINE, LIGHT, MAGNETISM.
124. While the point expands, it is active; this active expansion is
a simple repetition of the point, and this is a _Line_, which in the
sphere, however, is a _Radius_. With time originates not merely a
series of numbers, but together with it also the line. The line and
time are of one kind, repeated positions of the nothing, of the point.
It is consequently clear, how that time were a repeated positing of the
Eternal itself: for the line is only a repeated self-positing of the
point, of the nothing. God fluctuating in his eternity, and the point,
are one in kind; but God acting is a line, being or existing a sphere,
i. e. the point in the act of being.
125. The line is nothing new in creation, but time itself, when
regarded more closely. God creates the line as little as he does time;
but this originates unto him, while he moves, while he thinks. It is
impossible to think without producing a line. The line is therefore
from eternity, is a series of numbers.
126. The essence of the line does not consist in its two extremities
being continued with equal significance into the Infinite; but in its
_radiality_, i. e. that one extremity turned towards the centre has
become central, converging, absolute; but the other turned towards
the periphery has become divergent, finite, multiplicity. The primary
line is a line produced with two antagonized characters. The central
extremity is 0, the peripheral is the bisected zero = ±. This radial
line gives us the antetype of a new polarity. The two extremities
are not related as + and-towards each other, but as 0 and +-. At the
instant, when a line originates in the universe, it is not a line
merely, or an indefinite line that originates; but one that is definite
at both extremities, polar, indeed, but after a determinate fashion.
Nothing, not even a finite thing, exists in an indefinite manner.
127. There is no mathematically straight line in the world: all real
lines are polar; they are all rooted in God by one extremity, by the
other in finitude. The primary act becomes in its first operation
not merely a posited nothing, a numerical series; not merely time,
not merely an aoristic line, but a _Linea determinata_; in short, God
can step forth into time only as radius. The _Monas determinata_ is a
_Monas radialis_, or a centroperipheric monas.
128. The essence of the primary antagonism is a centroperipheric
antagonism. As centre is related to periphery, so is here one pole
related to the other. Polar existence and central or peripheral
existence are one. Primary polarity is centroperiphery. The primary
line is constantly in a state of polar action, which is called
_tension_; for it is always converging and diverging, at once central
and peripheric. Every line originates, therefore, only by tension, and
is only by it, yea, every line is nothing else than this tension.
129. A line, one extremity whereof strives towards the centre, the
other to the periphery, the one to identity, the other to duality,
will exhibit itself in the world as a _line of Light_, in the planet
as a _Magnetic line_. Magnetism is centroperipheric antagonism, a
radial line, 0--±, the action of the line being cleft at one extremity.
Magnetism has its root in the beginning of creation. It is prophesied
with time.
SURFACE, ELECTRICITY, OXYDATION.
130. The periphery is the boundary of the sphere, and is, consequently,
a superficies or _Surface_. This, therefore, originates also directly
with the positing of the Eternal.
131. As the primary line is not a purely polar, but a radial line, so
is the primary surface not a level, but a curved or convex surface.
132. There is _no level_ surface in the universe, no pure surfaces any
more than pure lines. All surfaces are curved. For example, those of
drops, of the heavenly bodies, of animals. The surface of a sphere is
no _Continuum_; but consists properly of the divided peripheric and
upright extremities of the radii; it is a ±.
133. The surface of a globe has no centre, no 0, like the radius; but
is an absolute Dualized, a ± without 0.
134. This mode of operating of the primary act is manifested as
electricity. Electricity is a merely peripheric antagonism, without
centre, thus without union; an eternally Dissevered without rest.
Electricity is thus also a special form, under which polarity makes its
appearance, and is likewise rooted in the primary creation. There is,
consequently, no thing which were not magnetic and electric.
135. The idea of a surface is constantly that of _surrounding_. It
is not generated by a section of a globe, but by the completion, the
_circumferential limitation_ of the sphere. The essence of the sphere
is _boundary_. Every surface is finite, is convex. In the divine
position a surface never occurs, save on the boundary of the primary
sphere.
136. As no thing can exist without a line, without a radius, so also
none can be without surface, without circumscription. The single
surface is identical with the _Locus_ of the old philosophers. Every
Finite is a closed whole, and that thing is of the most perfect kind
which has the most perfect closure, surface, periphery (or skin).
137. The surface is also not different from the primary act, but a
form of the primary act itself; or a boundary, which, however, nowhere
remains stationary, but is always displaced by means of the eternal
act. Therefore the world is at once unlimited and limited; the latter
in reference to the closure of the surface, the former to the endless
expansion of the same.
138. The periphery is the object in divine consciousness, the point
which, posited without the centre, is thus one and the same, centre
(subject) and periphery (object). It is everywhere the same point, the
same 0, wherever it be posited. Hence the profound saying, "_Mundus est
Sphæra, cujus centrum ubique, circumferentia nusquam_."
139. The surface stands in antagonism to the line, like periphery and
centre; it stands perpendicular upon the radius, and can never pass
parallel to linear action. Electricity ranks in eternal antagonism to
magnetism.
SPHERE, HEAT, CHEMISTRY.
140. The line and surface are density, the representation of time
and space; they have therefore like these originated out of nothing,
namely, out of the point. The sphere is the expanded nothing. Nothing
thus extended, or nothing _posited_, becomes a something, viz. line,
surface, density, polarity. The line is a long nothing, the surface a
hollow nothing, the sphere a dense nothing; in short, the something is
a nothing which has received only predicates. All things are nothings
with different forms. The point is = 0, the line = +, the surface = +-,
the sphere = + 0-.
141. The internal motion of the globe, or the becoming of the globe, is
manifested in the universe as _Heat_, in the planet as _Chemistry_.
ROTATION.
142. The primary sphere is rotating, for it has originated through
motion; the motion of the sphere cannot, however, be progressive,
for it fills everything. God is a rotating globe. The world is God
rotating. All motion is circular, and there is everywhere no straight
motion any more than there is a single line or straight surface.
Everything is comprehended in ceaseless rotation. Without rotation
there is no being and no life; for without it, there is no sphere, no
space and no time.
143. The more perfectly circular the motion of a thing is, so much
the more perfect is it. Straight motion is only the mechanical; such,
however, exists not through itself. The more a body moves in a straight
direction, the more mechanical and ignoble is it. Straight motion too
yields only straight form.
GEOMETRY.
144. The sphere with its attributes is the totality of numbers, is thus
a rotating number. The universe is the same. In arithmetic the quantity
of divine positions is regarded; in the sphere, however, the direction
of these positions, or of series of numbers.
145. The doctrine of the sphere is _Geometry_; for all forms are
contained in the sphere. All geometrical proofs admit of being
conducted through the sphere. Geometry has originated directly from
arithmetic, or is arithmetic itself, with this difference, that the
latter regards series of numbers as individualities, the former,
however, as a whole. Arithmetic is a geometry _seriebus discretis_;
geometry is an arithmetic _seriebus continuis_, a solidified arithmetic.
146. Geometry is a science of equal value with arithmetic; it is
even as certain, because it has no other propositions; it is equally
eternal, is the same realization of the primary act, the _Deus
geometrizans_ of the Pythagoreans. Everything to be certain must
therefore resemble geometry, must be itself a position of geometry,
only under other relations.
147. Geometry is more real, more finite, therefore also more apparent,
and, as it were, more material than arithmetic. The ideas in it have
become something determinate, have assumed form, while before they
still fluctuated formless in arithmetic; here were they mere ghosts
without veils, but in geometry they have received these veils. _Time_
has received for its form, its body, the line; _space_, the surface;
_life_, the globe, consequently the rotation for its form or body. It
is to be here remarked, that ideas always become more real and more
finite, always approximate nearer to actual manifestation, the lower
they descend or the more they are considered individually. Geometry has
not originated later than arithmetic, but is only a more individual
view of ideas, arithmetic being more universal. Geometry is arithmetic
with stationary numbers, = points. The Divine thus approximates to
manifestation, to materiality, the more individual it becomes; and
this is very natural, for it verily limits itself more and obtains
always more predicates. The more a thing obtains predicates, by so
much the more perfect is its finiteness. By geometry we are actually
transferred into the universe, but only into the formal, in which it
has, like a skeleton, been sketched for us solely upon a general plan;
namely, as infinite extension, in which line and periphery, central and
peripheric action, magnetism, electricity, and rotation, &c., have been
prefigured.
B.--_HYLOGENY._
a. GRAVITY. (_First form of the World. Rest._)
148. In arithmetic the divine acts are only undetermined = numbers. In
geometry the numbers obtain determinate or finite directions, become
figures. All figures have, however, an especial direction to the
centre. Figures are nought but centres manifoldly posited.
149. The direction to a centre is, however, an act, which never ceases
to operate. The primary act strives therefore to posit ad infinitum
nought else than a centre, i. e. points.
150. If there are points without the centre, it so happens only because
the succeeding points have been displaced by the points that were first
posited. The peripheric points are only with reluctance out of the
centre. The globe only exists in an uneasy state, because it has no
place in the centre.
151. Every finite thing strives towards the centre. The finite is only
something, in so far as it is posited in the centre, and it maintains
its value according to its distance from the centre. This exertion
or endeavour, by virtue of which things would be in the centre, is
_Gravity_.
152. What the retrogression of numbers into 0 is, that is the gravity
in the sphere. The gravity is a geometrical reduction of position
unto nothing. The sphere is only produced by _action_, and that
indeed by the centroperipheric. This action must therefore manifest
itself in two ways, as centrifugality and centripetality. The first
is the dispersion of the primary act or of points, the second is the
collection of the primary acts or points into the unity, and this is
gravity. Centrifugality originates only in a constrained manner or with
reluctance, for the primary act always seeks the centre, and only moves
towards the periphery, because it has no longer any place there. If
centripetality be regarded as a force, then is centrifugality no force,
but only centripetality itself retreating from the centre; even as cold
and darkness are probably no particular forces in themselves, but only
weaker degrees of heat or light.
153. Gravity is not motion simply, but motion unto a centre, unto rest.
154. That which is itself in the very centre is therefore not heavy.
The primary act is not heavy.
155. As all finite things are positions of the primary act in the
sphere out of the centre, so are all of them heavy. Gravity is the
force that strives unto the centre, and which is there impeded by other
forces already present therein. A finite thing, that is not heavy, is
a contradiction. The gravity of the single thing is weight. The world
itself has no weight, or else it must be heavy in relation to something
else without it. The ideas of gravity and weight, as we speak of them
in reference to individual things, are not applicable to the world,
still less to God.
156. Gravity is also nothing new in the world, but it is only the
positing of the centre in space. As necessarily as the Eternal, when it
manifests itself, must appear under a definite form, so also must it
be necessary with the eternal effort, to return into itself or appear
as gravity. Gravity is nothing different from the primary act, nothing
specially created; but the spherical position of the same tending unto
the centre.
157. Now, as the sphere has originated out of nothing, so also has
gravity originated out of the same. The form is a formed nothing:
the form is, however, no form without internal forming force, and to
this gravity belongs. The being of form and the being of gravity are
one. Gravity is a weighty nothing, a heavy essence, striving towards
centre, a realization of the first divine idea. Gravity cannot,
therefore, be perceived in the universe as a whole, but only in its
parts.
158. If gravity is the primary act that has become real, so must
everything originate out of gravity, or everything must acknowledge
gravity to be the common mother of the finite. It is in all cases,
or in every individual thing, only the gravity, the Ponderose, which
exists, otherwise nothing exists; for verily nothing exists without the
divine primary, which is incessantly a central, act.
MATTER.
159. Points, which strive towards the centre, are compressed, because
they would all occupy one and the same spot. These points, however,
are forces, which take up space and therefore exclude other points. A
space that excludes another is _Matter_. Everything which has been said
of gravity holds good in respect to matter; for matter is only another
word for gravity. A heavy thing is a material thing.
160. To the totality of a thing belongs not merely its figure nor its
tension or motion simply, but also its _gravity_. This is, however, a
whole sphere. Matter is, consequently, a total position of the primary
act, a trinity of ideas.
161. Matter has been imparted with space and time. All space is
material; ay, matter is itself the space and the time, the form and
the motion; for space is nothing special, but only extended or formed
force. It is here also shown that the nothing does not exist. There
is as little nothing in the universe as there is an 0 in mathematics.
So soon as the nothing is, there is something. The whole universe is
material, is nothing but matter; for there is the primary act eternally
repeating itself in the centre. The universe is a rotating globe of
matter.
162. But the universe is an acting gravity, a matter, in which the
centroperipheric antagonism is active; it is therefore _everywhere
matter only, which acts_. There is no activity without matter, but also
no matter without activity, both being one; for gravity is itself
the activity, and itself the matter. Matter is only limited activity.
A matter which does not move is not; it can only subsist through
continuous origination, through life. There is no dead matter; it is
alive through its being, through the eternal that is in it. Matter has
no existence in itself, but it is the Eternal only that exists in it.
Everything is God, that is there, and without God there is absolutely
nothing.
163. It is an illusion to believe that matter were an actual something
subsisting in itself. It is even so with numbers, upon which a
reality also is bestowed, when they are still demonstrable nothings.
A number is nothing truly than an affirmation several times repeated,
a reiterated deposition of what is nothing, what is no number. This
deposition happens likewise in the universe, where it is the primary
act, that is deposited. Where, however, this is, no other station can
occur. This exclusive property is usually called the _Impenetrable_,
the _Material_. It cannot be said in what spot matter arises, so
secretly and suddenly does it start into existence. It is matter
properly at the first manifestation of being, of time and of space; for
at the same instant also the line, surface, density and gravity have
been given. The line does not exist if it does not _act_; the sphere
does not exist if it be not inert, i. e. if its forces do not strive
towards the centre, and consequently to connexion. Nothing exists if it
is not material. Matter is accordingly coexistent with the presence of
God.
164. The Immaterial does not exist; for even the Material which is
_not_, is the Immaterial. Everything that is, is material. Now,
however, there is nothing that is not; consequently, there is
everywhere nothing immaterial. Immateriality is only a postulate
principle, by which to get at matter, like the 0 in mathematics, which
is nothing in itself, does not even exist, but that still must be
posited, in order that numbers may bear a reference to it.
165. God only is immaterial; he is the only permanent immaterial
invention, and the axiom being the Formless, Polarless, Timeless. A spirit
with form is a contradiction. But the matter also does not exist,
because matter is nothing, because it is only a sphere of central
actions, which is gravity.
166. The material universe is called nature. There can be only _one_
nature, as well according to time as to space and to divine animation.
There is only one God, whose operations expressed, or materially
posited, are nature. Nature has originated out of nothing like time
and space; or with these has nature also been. God has made heaven and
earth out of nothing.
167. God has not found matter co-eternal with himself, and, like an
architect, arranged this to his fancy; but he has, out of his own
eternal omnipotence, by his will simply, evoked the world out of
nothing unto existence. He has thought and spoken, and it was.
168. The doctrine of matter is the Philosophy of Nature. It is
therefore the science also of all Singulars, like geometry and
arithmetic; thus at bottom is only the third part of mathematics, and
is even as certain and demonstrable as this.
ÆTHER.
169. The matter, which is the direct position of God, which fills the
whole universe, which is the time in a state of tension and motion, the
formed space, the heavy primary essence, I call the _Primary matter_,
the matter of the world, cosmic matter, _Æther_. The æther is the
first realization of God, the eternal position of the same. It is the
first matter of creation. Everything has consequently originated out
of it. It is the highest, divine element, the divine body, the primary
substance = 0 +-.
170. The æther fills out the whole universe, and is, consequently, a
sphere, yea, the world's sphere itself; the world is a rotating globe
of æther.
171. The sphere of æther, not as yet individualized, I call _chaos_.
From the beginning was chaos, and this was æther, and unto the end
will chaos become æther. The æther is the apparent nothing, and thus
it is the chaos. This was not the latter and not the former, but an
existing nothing.
172. The æther is the imponderable matter, because it is gravity and
totality itself, because it is the infinite matter.
173. The æther has no life; it is the only mortuum, because it is the
heavy 0. In æther, however, reside all the principles of life, all
numbers; it is the substratum, the essence of life. There is only one
universal substratum in nature.
HEAVENLY BODY, POINT, CENTRE, GRAVITY.
174. Everything which emerges out of æther and is posited as a finite
matter, can be nought else than a repetition of the sphere.
175. The æther subdivides into an endless number of subordinate
rotating spheres, and so it must, because the world is not a whole
devoid of parts, but only a whole in the parts, only a repetition of
_positions_. The chaotic sphere of æther consists essentially at one
and the same time of an infinity of spheres.
176. A chaos has never existed. The General never exists, but only the
Particular. Chaos was from eternity a multiplicity of ætherial globes.
Chaos is only postulate.
177. Every sphere of æther is complete in itself and closed, and
therefore rotating around its axis and around the universal axis of the
æther.
178. The new rotation in the heavenly bodies condensed in the periphery
of the æther, follows as a necessary result, on account of the unequal
velocity of its outwardly and inwardly lying points.
179. Every individual sphere has _two_ motions in itself; the one
depends upon the representation of the primary act in itself by the
_special_ rotation; the other re-attempts to regain the primary centre,
through the _general_ rotation around the universal axis.
180. Such a sphere rotating for itself is called _a Heavenly body_. A
heavenly body again is the image or metatype of the Eternal; it is a
whole, it is alive; everything, even the highest, can originate out of
it; everything develop itself out of the coagulated, individualized
æther. The heavenly body has a double life, an individual and an
universal, since it is for itself and at the same time in the general
centre. Every _Individual_ must have a double life.
181. The heavenly bodies are as old as the æther, consequently they
are from the beginning, and endure also without end. As they are only
coagulated æther, so are they susceptible of being resolved into the
same, such as are probably the comets.
b. LIGHT, LINE. (_Second form of the World. Motion._)
182. The æther is from eternity, not merely monas, but also dyas;
from eternity it stands in a state of tension with itself, when, as
the image of the existing primary act, it has emerged out of itself
into two poles. This self-egression or self-manifestation of æther,
or of substance simply, is the self-egression of the point into the
periphery. As dyas, æther exists under the form of polarity, of
central and peripheric effort; the æther in a state of tension is a
centroperipheric antagonism.
183. The æther is separated from eternity into a central and peripheric
substance, and that indeed through its simple position as a globe. The
universe is a duplicity in the form of æther; it is both indifferent
and different æther, both central and peripheric. The central mass
of æther may be called sun, the peripheric planet. Only one sun can
originate in a globe of æther, but many planets.
184. Between the central and peripheral mass of the æther, between the
sun and planets, there is tension. Through this solar-planetary tension
the æther fluctuating between the two becomes polarized.
185. The tension of the æther proceeds from the centre and thus from
the sun. Were the sun to be removed, the polarity of the æther would be
annulled; it would be again the indifferent chaotic æther, the null and
void matter. For the absolute substance to exist it needed not simply
itself, but an identical centre and a dissevered periphery. Is there
no peripheric mass, no planet, so also is the tension annulled; centre
cannot be without periphery, sun not without planet, nor vice versâ.
The tension of æther is thus excited by the sun and conditioned by the
planet. The planet is not the principle, but the Redintegrant of the
tension of æther by the opposition.
186. At that part of the universe where no periphery stands opposed to
centre, no planet to the sun, the æther is not tense, but indifferent,
annulled. There can thus only be columns of æther, which are rendered
tense, namely, those _columns_ of æther which are found between the
sun and the planets. Near to the planets the æther is void of action,
indifferent, non-apparent. There are consequently as many apparent
æther-columns, as there are heavenly bodies, that stand in the process
of polarity opposed to each other. These columns move with the
planets around the suns. The indifferent æther of the world-space is,
therefore, successively rendered tense, as the planets move around
suns, and becomes again indifferent behind the planets.
187. But besides this, that columns of tension only exist, and
therefore that the æther is nowhere active as a sphere, there is still
no spot in the world-space where there would be only indifferent æther,
nothing; for the æther consists of many globes of æther. There is thus
nowhere an indifferent æther, consequently nowhere an empty space. The
idea of the repletion of space is not that of the sphere, but of the
columns of tension, which by their crossing in every direction form a
sphere only externally.
188. That which is thought of as originally filling space is not the
quiescent but only the moved, tensed æther. The former is the void
space, the nothing.
189. The tension of æther is an action, which operates according to the
line. This linear activity, which makes its exit from the central mass
and is excited hence to the peripheral mass, is _Light_, or in short,
light is tension of æther.
190. Light is a traction of lines or radial action; consequently an
antetype of magnetism. A ray of light is a radius. The ray of light
has two extremities different from each other; that turned towards the
sun is 0, that which comes in contact with the planets is ±. Light is,
therefore, a splitting, rending action.
191. Light is the life of the æther. Hitherto the æther was an inactive
nothing, mere substratum for a future. This nothing, when it becomes
centroperipheric, seeks to tear the mathematical point into radii and
circumferences, _appears_; and this centroperipheric manifestation we
call light.
192. The untensed, indifferent æther is, therefore, _darkness_, and
this is the essence, the rest of æther. Chaos was thus darkness; the
world arose out of darkness when light became. Light has originated out
of darkness when the chaos was moved. Were it possible therefore for
all light to vanish, the world would again return into its old nothing;
for darkness and nothing are one. God has separated the light from the
darkness.
193. If light be only a column of æther in a state of tension, light
is or exists only between the planet and the sun; near to the planet
and behind it is darkness. The primary sphere is a dark sphere,
transpierced only by single rays of light. Each star, however, stands
in a state of tension with another; thus many thousand rays of light
stream forth from each, and fill out the world-space in all directions.
There is therefore no absolute darkness, because there are infinitely
numerous rays of light. In the night also there is always as much
light present as is necessary to maintain the heavenly bodies in their
action. For the world there is no night, but only for the planets.
It will be shown that the air maintains its existence simply through
the operation of light; were it therefore always dark, were night
to endure for ever, the air must soon assume another composition or
mixture, and everything that lives in it must fall to ruin. This is
shown also by the diseases and crises of the same.
194. Light is from eternity, for the tense æther was from eternity.
The dark chaos exists only as postulate. Light is time that has become
real, the first manifestation of God; is God himself positing, is
the dyadic God. The dyas is not merely radiality but light; or both
are one, time and light are one, motion and light are one. When God
numbers, when he draws lines, he thus creates light. God becoming
self-conscious is light. Light is God illuminating. Darkness has
accordingly never existed, although the light is derived from the
darkness, like numbers and figures are out of nothing.
195. Light is no matter. There is no substance called light, but the
æther is illuminant through its binary division. The sun does not,
therefore, stream forth when it illumines the planets, and loses
nothing of its magnitude; it is not to be feared that we shall ever
lose it. That the sun is an undulating sea of flame, that it is
throughout a volcano, that combustions or electrical processes of
light, appearing to us as light, occur in its atmosphere; that the
velocity of rotation hurls about the light-particles, and that these
particles scattered in the world-space are, by an unknown route, or by
means of comets, again brought back to the sun, are opinions unworthy
the inquirer into nature. The sun gives out nothing but the impulse,
not, however, the mechanical, which makes the space of heaven tremble
upon which it shines; but the purely spiritual, as the nerves rule the
muscle. The sun can never be extinguished, never become dark; for it
gives out light, not as a fire, but simply by reason of its standing
in the midst; its simple position, its enchainment to the planets is
light. A fire upon the sun would not be perceived by us; it would
not lighten nor warm us, because of its having no relation to us.
The central relation of the sun toward us cannot, however, remain
unobserved, and this observation is even that of light.
196. Matter has become by means of light, is a child of light, is but
illuminating æther. Every binary division of matter manifests itself as
light.
197. The whole universe is transparent, because everything has issued
out of the tension of æther. Everything which is matter is light, and
without light there is nothing. Without light the universe is not
only dark but it is even not. Light is the universe, and every Finite
is only a different position of light. The world is a thoroughly
illuminating globe, a rotating globe of light. The solar system must
have been created according to the laws of light. The phenomena
of the world are only representations of optics, consequently of
living geometry. What we see is nothing but optical construction or
figuration. (Vid. Oken's 'Essay über das Licht;' Jena. Fromann. 1808.)
c. HEAT, DENSITY. (_Third form of the World. Shape._)
198. Light is not simply a motion in itself, a mere continuous
excitation of polarity in the æther, but it is also the æther itself
_set in motion_ thereby. All polar actions resolve themselves finally
into motion of the polarized masses. The end of electricity, galvanism,
magnetism, is motion. It will be, however, shown that all these polar
functions are only repetitions of the primary polarity; this must
therefore produce what the former did, namely, ætherial motion.
199. Every point of the æther becomes polar, every one attracts and
_repels_ the other; whereby motion arises in the innermost parts of
the æther itself. Not a portion of the æther is moved on, but motion
originates in the mass of æther itself. The æther-atoms quit each other.
200. The æther is, however, that which is filling space, is space
itself, the Expansissimum of the world, the Formless and therefore that
which adopts all forms. The formless æther, when it moves itself,
must be connected with a phenomenon, that depends upon its expansion
and identification, which is polarized by light. This action of the
æther does not therefore depend upon the tension of æther, not upon
production from differences in the same, but upon dissolution of the
tension, therefore upon extension, upon the indifferent representation
of space. This action, which is at the same time universal, can only be
heat. Moved æther is _Heat_.
201. Heat is the contest of the indifferent æther with light; light
alone produces heat. Without light the world were not only dark, but
also absolutely cold. Cold is untensed and quiescent æther, death,
nothing; dark and cold are one. Heat is therefore the result of light,
but equally eternal with it; it is space represented really, as that is
real time.
202. Heat is not moved indifferent ether, which is = nothing; but moved
and tensed or the _moved light_.
203. Heat penetrates into thickness as an extending function, but does
not oscillate between two poles like light. It is only the function
of density, and depends upon nothing else, not upon lines or mere
surfaces, but upon the living sphere.
204. Heat and light, although characters of _one_ substance, yet
stand in an antagonism like thickness and line, or as indifference
and difference. Heat is properly the first perfected position of the
primary act, while light is only the act of positing; the latter
therefore is +, the former-. Or also, gravity is the absolute position,
simply = 0; light is the commencing egression of this position out
of itself +-, heat the completion + 0-, and therefore the position
everywhere; it will everywhere deposit, therefore it is motion,
repletion of space, expansion. Light is gravity become real, or 0
become real; 0 however, rendered real, is +-. Heat is as-at the same
time +-and 0, or light and gravity, material light, light that is
filling. Both will also assert the antagonism of their genesis through
all forms of the world. The heat seeks to destroy the line, which the
light endeavours to establish; heat seeks to produce homogeneity in the
Dissimilar, light to effect the reverse. Heat is slow in its motion;
with it the mass of æther must continually move, or move whither it
will operate; light, however, acts spiritually and rapidly, without
motion of the mass, but only glides continually with the latter. Heat
is not created, it is no special matter different from æther. There is
no _body of heat_.
205. Heat is everywhere where the æther is, and must consequently be
regarded as a sphere. Heat is not present merely in the columns of
æther between the heavenly bodies, but everywhere. Therefore heat does
not move itself in the direction of the line, but it extends itself on
all sides, as real space.
FIRE.
206. Light and heat were the first phenomena of the world. Heat with
light, however, are _Fire_. Fire is the totality of æther, is God
manifested in his totality. God, previous to his determination to
create a world, was darkness; in the first act of creation, however, he
appeared as fire. There is no higher, more perfect symbol of divinity
than fire. God's whole consciousness, apart from individual thoughts,
is fire. The Holy Scriptures therefore usually admit of God appearing
under the form of a fire, as a fiery bush, a flame. The world is none
other than a rotating globe of fire.
207. Everything that is, has originated out of fire; everything is
only _cooled_, rigidified fire. As everything has become out of fire,
so must everything to be annihilated have recourse to fire. If finite
things be only fire singly posited, so must every change occurring in
the same be an igneous change. Nothing changes in the world but fire.
The essential change of things take place only by fire.
RETROSPECT.
208. The Triplicity of the primary act in the universe has now been
completely demonstrated. The first manifestation of God is monas; to
this corresponds _Gravity_, _Æther_, darkness, the cold of chaos. The
second manifestation of God is the dyas; to this corresponds the æther
in a state of tension, the _Light_. The third manifestation of God is
the trias; to this corresponds the want of form, _Heat_. _God being in
himself is Gravity_; _acting_, self-emergent, _Light_; _both together_,
or returning into himself, _Heat_. These are the _three Primals_ in the
world, and equal to the three which were prior to the world. They are
the manifested triunity = _Fire_.
PART II.
ONTOLOGY--OF SINGULARS.
A.--_COSMOGENY_.
a. REST, CENTRE.
209. Through light duplicity originates in the æther, by virtue
of which the æther divides into central and peripheric æther. The
peripheric necessarily rotates around the central. Every part of the
æther is a sphere; the æther therefore is separated by the light into
infinitely numerous central and peripheric spheres. Creation is an
endless position of centres. The primary centre is inventive.
210. There cannot be therefore only a single central mass; otherwise
the universe would be a finite.
211. The central spheres are characterized by absoluteness, the
peripheric, however, by finiteness, division; the former are something
in themselves, but the latter are so only by opposition; yet the two
could not be without each other.
212. Every central body must be surrounded by several peripheric
bodies. The peripheric spheres rotate around the central, the images of
the primary centre. A Whole, consisting of a central body and several
peripheric bodies, is called _solar system_.
213. Chaos is not conceivable, without being at the same time solar
system. The solar systems are nothing specially created, but have been
given with chaos or with light, are indeed only the æther separated by
light. The primary matter appearing as light must appear at the same
time as sun and planet. Primary act, sun and planet are of one kind,
and differ only in this, that the former is posited individually in the
latter, while in itself it is non-posited.
214. There is no general central body, no central sun, about which all
suns and planets gravitate. The essence of the æther consists in its
complete dissipation. There exists only an infinity of solar systems,
which taken together form the central body. All solar systems pursue a
course to and fro through each other, like the blood-globules in the
vessels. The general central body is only inventive. That the general
central body may be dark (that it must be, if present, from its being
invisible) is an assertion which betrays an ignorance of the essence of
light. A dark central body is an absurdity.
b. MOTION, LINE.
215. Sun and planet, as individual spheres, have also their own
individual gravity. The æther therefore must exist otherwise than in
the universal sphere. The next change of the æther is _condensation_,
more intense gravity, because it becomes more individual, centre
and periphery approximate more closely to each other. The heavenly
bodies must contain more matter, more æther in an equal space than the
terrestrial globe.
216. The heavenly bodies have obtained their matter nowhere else than
out of the primary matter, the æther; they are condensed æther. The
heavenly bodies of a solar system have derived their mass out of the
æther, which is found within the confines of this solar system. The
matter of the heavenly bodies was thus previous to its coagulation
strewn in the space of the solar system, and has been by so much the
rarer, as the space of the solar system is larger than the volume of
all the planets together with the sun. It admits therefore of being
calculated how much rarer the æther is than e. g. water.
217. The æther is therefore not absolutely imponderable, but only so in
relation to the heavenly bodies. Light and heat are therefore ponderose
substances, though they are not ponderable.
218. The separation of the æther into central and peripheric mass has
happened according to the laws of light, and thus according to the
centroperipheric primary antagonism. As a consequence of this, only
_one_ central body can originate in a solar system; the mass of the
periphery can, however, divide into several, and must divide into as
many as the light has moments of operation; of this we shall speak for
the first time in treating of colours.
219. The matter of the periphery can be condensed by light into no
other form than that of a _hollow_ globe around the sun. The planets
are originally concentric _hollow globes_, in the midst of which the
sun is formed. There are several hollow globes, because the light has
several points of contraction at certain distances from the sun.
220. The number of hollow planetary globes is a definite one, and it is
not an arbitrary matter how many of them originate.
221. The matter of such a hollow globe of æther is still, however,
rarer by so much than the present planetary mass, as that of our earth
would be rarer if it were to form a hollow globe around the sun, about
as thick only as from the earth to the moon.
222. This hollow globe rotates with the sun, because the whole globe
of æther, which fills out the space of the subsequent solar system,
rotates; therefore everything necessarily tends in one direction.
223. These hollow planetary globes, on account of the rarity of their
mass, their rotation, and the greater tension of light, could not
subsist in the equatorial plane of the solar system, but coagulate
together in equatorial rings about the centre of the whole system. The
planetary foetuses are only _solar rings_, which rotate with the sun.
224. If the whole coagulated æther of the solar system be so small in
quantity, that when extended around the sun in a planetary track or
course, it still does not become solid; so also can the orbitar ring
not persist, but it contracts itself through light, rotation and
the peculiar excited gravity into a _globe_. This globe continues to
rotate, as it did when under the conditions of orbitar ring, of hollow
globe and as æther; i. e. it pursues a course around the sun. The
peripheric globe travels necessarily in the same plane in which the sun
rotates. This is therefore called the zodiac. This globe rotates also
around its own axis and virtually in the same direction, according to
which it performs its course or the sun rotates. A globe coursing and
rotating around the sun in its equatorial plane and in its direction is
called _planet_.
225. At the first aggregation of the mass of the planetary ring into
a planetary globe, the latter was still very much extended, the
earth extending beyond the moon. The mass was thus gaseous. What
happened in the great globe of æther, of which the sun has become
the centre, happens also here. An opposition of centre to periphery
again originates; and a subordinate sun and new orbitar rings are
formed. If the mass of the planetary equatorial ring be only small and
consequently rare, it rolls into a globe and together with this into
_moons_.
226. If it be much, consequently so dense, that it coheres, it remains
stationary, and is _Saturn's ring_.
227. This is the genesis of the planetary system, but everything has
become, and remained as it became, at one stroke. The moon can never
have existed as an orbitar ring around the earth in time, or else it
had been solid. Being once solid, it can no more coagulate into a
globe. Still less, however, have the planets originated from conjoined
moons. From whence then have the moons come? The solar system has not
arisen mechanically, but dynamically; it has not become what it is by
being projected or hurled from the hand of God, nor by impulses and
aberrations; but by polarization according to eternal laws, according
to the laws of light.
228. As a necessary number of planetary productions exists, so also is
their magnitude, distance and velocity a determinate one. No planet,
whatever its situation, has attained that by chance. Were the earth
larger, it must also have occupied some other place, and have had
another velocity, another density of mass, &c.
229. The coagulating matter of æther must collect into a larger mass
in the centre than in the periphery. The centre will exist everywhere,
and the periphery comes only to its behalf as if it were a scaffold
or prop only to existence. The sun can only be the principle of the
determination of the planets by the preponderance of its mass. Our sun
comprises above 700 planetary systems in itself.
230. Sun and planet are mutually conditionated; both have originated
at the same time, the former as the positive pole, the latter as the
negative, as the necessary counterpoint, or the one as 0, the other
as ±. The hypothesis, which surmises that the planets have come from
another solar system, is not maturely considered. For how have they
there originated? Such explanations are mere child's play. Sun and
planet are in idea but _one_ piece, only _one_ line with two different
extremities. The same act which polarizes the sun polarizes also
the planets out of chaos. One and the same æther that has become
positive, is called sun, when negative, it is called planet. Both
are only a single globe of æther, the centre of which is called sun,
the periphery, planet. The latter belongs to the sun, like a stone
though detached from, belongs to, the earth; its rotation is therefore
similar, but retarded.
c. FORM
231. The sun cannot be in the absolute middle of the solar system,
on account of its antagonism with the planets, which would likewise
become the centre. The collective mass of the planets is the secession
of the sun from the centre. The situation of the sun or the degree of
its excentricity bears relation to the polar force of the planets. The
form, under which the solar system really exists, cannot therefore be
the sphere, but the ellipse, i. e. the duplicity of the centre.
232. The sphere is only the type of the universe, of the æther,
but not of the solar system nor the Finite. No Finite is absolutely
spherical. As the real universe can only exist in a bicentral
condition, so is there in this respect also no universal central
body. It is there, but under the form of bicentrality, as sun and
planet. God only is monocentral. The world is the bicentral God, God
the monocentral world, which is the same with monas and dyas. The
primary polarity, the dyas, the radiality, the light establishes
itself in nature as bicentrality, which is the cosmogenic expression
for self-manifestation or self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is a
living ellipse.
233. The bicentrality determines the distance of the planets from the
sun. If the sun as the active pole be strong or energetic, the planets
will occupy a remote situation; if it be feeble or weak, one that is
near. The strength of the polar energy depends, however, upon the
quantity of the mass. Were the mass of the sun less, all the planets
would range nearer to it; were it greater, they would be all driven
further off, as electricity repels the pith-balls of elder-wood; more
than this the planets are not towards the sun, but even less. The
energy of the solar polarization depends not merely upon its magnitude,
but also upon the velocity of rotation, which harmonizes with the
former; the latter, however, depends upon the original velocity of
rotation of the æther. The velocity of the rotation of æther being
assumed as definite, that of the sun must be definite also, and with
this everything accords.
234. The circumvolution of the planets around the sun is a _polar_
process of _attraction_ and _repulsion_, by virtue of the primary law
in the solar system, by virtue of the light. The planet then can only
be repelled in the neighbourhood of the sun from the sun, when it has
the _same_ solar pole in itself, when it has become positive; and can
only attract it at a distance from the sun, when it has received the
opposite pole to the sun, or has become negative.
235. This is only conceivable in that the planet, while it draws
nearer to the sun, extinguishes in itself by its _own_ power the
negative pole, and produces on the contrary the positive pole, or
becomes a sun; and that, as it removes itself from the sun, it again
extinguishes the positive solar pole, and generates the negative
planetary pole within itself. This substantial production of
alternating poles upon the planet takes place through the diversity
of its surface as water and land, through the oblique position
of its axis, whereby summer and winter are produced, through the
processes, or through the life that is upon it, through the processes
of decomposition and combination effected by water, through the
revival and death of vegetation, and even the white colour of snow.
The planet discharges its pole in the neighbourhood of the sun, like
a cork pellet, and reloads of itself at a distance from the sun;
and thus oscillates to and fro, like the hammer in an electrical
bell. The course of the planets takes place with the greatest ease.
It is everywhere no force of weight, of impulse, but of the easiest
self-motion. The planet revolves by its own force to and from the sun,
like the blood circulates to and from the heart.
236. The planet cannot, however, be diverted from its course, because
the other heavenly bodies, probably the comets, do not act mechanically
but only polarly upon it. By means of this polarity they maintain
themselves always at a distance, even as the sun keeps itself at a
distance from the planets. In addition to this, the polar tension
between the comet and the sun is stronger than between the comet and
the planets. The perturbations of the planets depend upon their polar
relations to each other. Although the planets have a centrifugal
tendency, they are not thrown by a prodigious mechanical force in
the direction of the tangent, and then drawn back by an attractive
force of the sun, that has no import or meaning; but they course in
a playful manner round the sun. A theory of attraction of this kind
has no physical sense. Such an attraction is a _Qualitas occulta_, an
angel which flies before the planets. It does not create the world by
impulses and strokes, but only by vivification.
237. Were the planet dead, it could not be attracted or repelled by
the sun; it would have from the very beginning always maintained a
similar pole in itself, and it could therefore only move in a circular
manner around the sun. The circular motion or course around the sun is
not generally conditioned by the polarity of the planets, but depends
upon the primary rotation. Proportionably to the mutual interchange
of polar operation between the sun and planet, the latter would only
approach the sun in the line of the apsides, and thus remove from it;
but by the primary rotation it is conducted around it. The elliptical
path is consequently the result of rotation and of the polar or linear
interchange of operation between the two heavenly bodies.
238. The moon would keep a wholly circular path around the sun, if it
were not disturbed by the earth, were it not through the difference of
the earth's poles to passively retain also different polarities; for
the moon is in itself dead.
239. The moon is not attracted more forcibly by the earth than the sun;
and therefore it remains not by the earth. The sun exercises more polar
action, more photal action upon it than the earth, and yet it falls not
into the sun, for the very same reason that the earth itself does not
fall in. The moon is forsooth to be regarded as itself a planet with a
definite charge of electricity, which is always equably maintained by
light; as such it rotates circularly about the sun. But it rotates in
the same path wherein the earth rotates; therefore the latter operates
upon it and draws it in its strange serpentine line around the sun.
240. The more living a planet is, by so much the more excentric is its
path, because it enters into great opposition with the light.
241. If polarization by light be the cause of the attraction and
repulsion of the planets from the sun, so is it also the cause of the
distance of the planetary masses generally. The individual distance
of the several planets is determined by the energy of their own polar
excitation. Planets, which possess a strong polar energy, must range
further than the others from the sun. This polar energy is, however,
dependent upon the magnitude and density of the mass, upon the level
state or unevenness of the surface, upon the capacity for heat, upon
the quantity of water, upon the position of the axis in regard to
the path, upon the possible processes of vegetation; it is thus not
to be determined. Before vegetation was upon the earth, there were
other processes, e. g. the aqueous precipitations, that changed the
polarity; so that the path might formerly have been different to what
it subsequently was or is now.
242. Planets are consequently those bodies which possess in themselves
a peculiar degree of polarity and a substantial change of the same,
whereby their individual distance and the nature of their paths are
determined.
COMETS.
243. The comets are heavenly bodies, devoid of a persistent grade of
polarity, and without any substantial change in the same. They obtain
their polarity solely from the sun, like the cork-pellet from the
electrical machine. The comet is therefore repelled as far from the sun
as there is still an action between it and the polarity that has been
imparted to the comet.
244. At the point where all antagonism between comet and sun ceases,
the former must remain stationary, and resolve itself again into æther.
This is the case with those comets that never return. These comets are
temporal coagulations of æther by light, and thus continued creation.
245. The æther coagulates where the light, already polarized in part by
the operations of other heavenly bodies, encounters it. This depends
upon fortuitous constellations.
246. These comets originate like the planets; they are æther condensed
in the form of an orbitar ring. This dissevered _orbitar ring_ is the
_tail_, which is only a more gaseous æther, through which, or even
through the nucleus itself, the stars are seen. The tail follows the
comet not really but only ideally. Around the nucleus, so far as it is
prolonged, the light concentrates the æther. New æther is constantly
emitting light, while that which was before illuminating as tail again
becomes dark and again sinks into a state of indifference. The tail
is only an optical spectrum. For how can the tail be really a part of
the comet, since it is always turned backwards from the sun, since it
therefore follows and precedes the nucleus? The nucleus is only the
lamp which kindles the æther surrounding it for some time. The light
suffers a modification through the nucleus; it therefore polarizes
only the æther behind it. The tail is the evident example of what is
antecedent in the origin of the heavenly bodies. It is the heavenly
body conceived in the act of becoming, but unto which polarization is
wanting; it cannot therefore concentrate itself, but again dissolves
when the nucleus is gone. Every heavenly body is a mass of æther in the
world-space, which is materialized by light, and separated out of its
indifference into difference, into more solid masses. Finally, the tail
becomes dense æther, a nucleus.
247. These comets are thus true meteors; as they originate, so
originate the globes of fire, by polarization occurring in the
atmosphere, or even too above the limits of the atmosphere.
248. Meteoric stones are terrestrial comets. The opinion that they come
from the moon has no foundation. There is probably as little metal as
water upon the moon.
249. Returning comets are probably polarized by two suns.
250. A comet can never come into collision with a planet; the fear of
such an event is equally absurd with the hypothesis, that a comet had
produced the deluge or displaced the earth's axis.
251. Two planets also can never come into mutual collision, not
even those that have been recently discovered, although their paths
intersect each other.
252. The planets are returning comets, which, however, before they have
come to the second sun, have produced within themselves the opposite
pole to the sun. What happens to the comets through the influence of
the second sun, the planets effect of themselves.
B.--_STÖCHIOGENY._
CONDENSATION.
253. Through its separation into polar masses the æther becomes
_condensed_, heavy and material.
254. This condensation is the result of the _fixation_ of a definite
pole on a definite mass of æther. The essence of the æther consists in
its having no fixed pole, but that all the poles oscillate to and fro
with the greatest facility from one particle of æther to the other.
This is what is meant by indifference, by equivalency of poles; no part
of the æther differs from another, because none retains permanently a
definite pole, but each of them all the poles. The formation of the
heavenly bodies is none other than an union of poles to a definite mass
of æther.
255. A mass of æther with a fixed pole is a dense matter; such a
mass of æther I call _terrestrial_ matter, but the æther itself the
_cosmic_. Sun and planet must be terrestrial matters, for the essence
of both consists in the difference of their poles.
256. The cause of the fixation of poles resides in light.
257. The heavenly bodies go to ruin by removal of the fixation of the
pole abiding on the mass, substratum or substance, not by mechanical
demolition. The destruction of the heavenly bodies is a retrogression
of their mass into æther by means of fire. Heat does not drive the
bodies, after the manner of a wedge, from each other, but only
suppresses their polarity, and then the atoms must withdraw from
each other. Heat depends only on the destruction of poles, _not_ upon
extension. The heavenly bodies are ruined in the same way that they
have originated, namely, through the primary act in its retrogression.
258. It is only the pole, no other concealed property, which maintains
the being of the mass. The mass is not a terrestrial mass subsisting
simply by its own rest. Nothing material is the cause of the form
of matter, but the Spiritual. Matter has therefore no quality, no
consistence of itself, but is nothing, is æther. Mass cannot supplant
mass, nor mechanism destroy anything material. The destruction must
proceed from within.
259. The fixation of poles in the substance is the _impenetrability_
of matter. It is only the spirit in matter which renders this
impenetrable, not the mass itself.
260. The æther is penetrable, and therefore also _penetrating_. Heat is
penetrating; light, as æther in a state of tension, is only partially
penetrating.
261. All the diversity of matter depends upon the fixation of poles in
the substance. For there is no diversity in the universe without poles,
without binary division. The substance always remains the same, it is
only the poles that change. The substance is the Indestructible, the
Persistent, the æther, the nothing.
262. The fixation is the perquisite, but the necessary one, of the
substance. The diversity of things resides only in the perquisite. In
the substance all are alike. There is only _one_ substance, only _one_
essence.
ELEMENTAL BODIES. (_How many kinds of Æther-condensations may exist?_)
263. The æther has three forms, and can therefore condense itself after
a ternary manner, or in other words, there can be only three kinds of
fixations of poles.
264. The condensations of the several forms of æther must be simple
matters or _Elemental bodies_, as they are called.
265. There can therefore be only three simple bodies, a body of gravity
= 0, one of light = +, and one of heat =-.
266. If the heat of the æther becomes fixed, the rarest, most mobile
and lightest body must originate. The body of heat is _Hydrogen_.
267. If the light of the æther becomes fixed, a less dense, and thus
a less heavy matter, must originate, and one whose atoms are moveable
against each other. The body of light must be the most active in
nature; it must determine the changes of all other elemental bodies.
The body of light is _Oxygen_.
268. If the gravity of the æther become fixed, the greatest
condensation must originate. The densest matter is necessarily the
heaviest. The dense matter must be immoveable in its atoms, i. e.
endowed with form. The body of gravity is _Carbon_ (as basis of the
metals).
269. Besides these 3 elemental bodies, hydrogen, oxygen and carbon,
there can be no other simple bodies. All other bodies must be only
different degrees of fixation of the above-mentioned bodies, or
combinations of the same. Different degrees of carbon are without doubt
the metals. Different degrees of oxygen are probably chlorine, iodine,
bromine. Different degrees of hydrogen are probably sulphur. Nitrogen
is probably peroxydised hydrogen, or an oxyd of hydrogen; this is
indicated by its medium weight, and its perfectly azotic character.
ELEMENTS.
270. Simple bodies cannot exist for themselves, for there can nowhere
be an æther, which merely belongs to gravity, or merely to light or to
heat.
271. An elemental body is never a Total, but invariably a Polar, a
something not whole, properly a half or rather but a third essence, a
fraction. One-sidedness is therefore the character of the elemental
body.
272. One pole is nowhere produced, but all are invariably present
together. The terrestrial matter completed must therefore consist of
the three primary bodies, but occurring in diverse proportions. As
light and heat can never subsist without the substance of the æther, so
also can no body of light and no body of heat subsist per se without
the body of gravity or carbon, and vice versâ. The general materials of
nature are therefore combinations of the three primary bodies.
273. The æther is the totality of the primary bodies in equal
proportion, where thus no pole is fixed, but all are comprehended in
fixation, i. e. in constant change.
274. All other general matters must be also combinations of the three
primary bodies, but with different fixation, or in unequal proportion.
There can consequently be only four general matters.
275. The first general matters are called _Elements_. There are only
four elements, one general and three particular.
1. Element, Fire.
2. - - - - Heat.
3. - - - - Light.
4. - - - - Gravity.
276. Each element is a total representation of the æther.
277. An element is not that which is chemically inseparable, but it is
only the _Whole_, which has first originated. But the elemental bodies
are chemically non-decomposible, because they are already separate,
being moieties or fractions.
278. The heat element is the hydrogen element--_Air._
279. The light element is the oxygen element--_Water._
280. The gravity element is the carbon element--_Earth._
281. In each element, beside the basic or combustible elemental body,
there is also oxygen; for they are verily naught else than the æther
fixed by light, æther that has become heavy by means of light.
AIR.
282. The first condensation of the æther must be that which corresponds
to its condition as heat. This element, as being that in which the
atoms have no connexion, must be therefore the lightest and rarest. In
this element the poles must be fixed in the least degree, and therefore
change with the slightest operation. This element is therefore moveable
in all directions, is the most unstable, and in form most similar to
the æther.
283. Active freedom from form predominates in it, i. e. its atoms are
constantly striving to withdraw from each other, or the mass to extend.
This endeavour is called elasticity. Elasticity is none other than the
endeavour to become a greatest or interminable globe. The terrestrial
matter, with this striving towards an universal globe, is called _gas_.
284. The formless internally moveable element, constantly extending
itself and changing its pole, is the _Air_.
285. The air is the first terrestrial element, the first degree of
ætherial condensation associated with the feeblest fixation of poles,
the constant change of which is manifested in its electric relations.
It corresponds in every respect, in mobility, extension, general
penetration, &c., to heat. The air consists of a preponderance of the
body of heat or hydrogen (oxydulated as nitrogen in the proportion of
79 by volume), and of a fair quantity of the body of light or oxygen
(21); also of a very small amount of the body of gravity or carbon, as
evidenced in the carbonic acid.
286. The air is a maximum of air, a medium of water, and a minimum of
earth.
287. As heat is not merely indifferent æther, nor merely its motion or
extension, but is the æther moved by the polarity of light, so is the
hydrogen gas in the air not in a pure state, but converted by oxygen
into nitrogen. The air is in every respect therefore an element that
has undergone combustion, an oxyd of hydrogen and carbon.
288. The oxygen is that which is everywhere active, exciting, moving,
and vivifying everything; it is the light in the Terrestrial. The
nitrogen is inert, as it were mortified, and therefore mortifying
or causing death; the former the +, the latter the-. The greatest
activity among all terrestrial elements resides in the air, since all
polarizations issue from it.
289. The changes in the air are accompanied by constant changes of
temperature, for they are verily in themselves nothing else than
changes of caloric-æther.
290. All subsequent elements must originate from or be condensations of
air, even as this has arisen out of, and been a condensation of, the
æther.
291. Condensations, however, are fixations of poles; the other elements
differ therefore only from air by having other poles fixed in them.
292. Since the poles are at the same time fixed more internally on
these elements, they can no longer have the gaseous form.
293. They must on this account contain more bulk and be therefore
heavier.
WATER.
294. If the polarity of light becomes fixed in a certain quantity of
the mass of æther, or the oxygen of the air obtains the preponderance,
a less changing element originates possessing a more definite
character, and the atoms of which adhere more strongly to each other
than those of air.
295. This element has, in addition to the gaseous effort towards a
general globe or periphery, the effort at the same time also to a
centre, or to an individual globe. It is therefore neither elastic
or gaseous. The effort of a mass to a _special_ and _general_ globe
is a conflict betwixt form and want of form. This effort is called
_fluidity_.
296. The fluid element must contain a preponderance of oxygen (85), and
less hydrogen (15). There is also some carbon present in it. The carbon
of water is to be sought in the slime of the sea, for the sea, and not
fresh water, is the primary water.
297. The fluid element oxygen is the _Water_. Water in large as well
as in small quantities, seeks to represent the globe, namely, to
form drops. It possesses therefore the effort unto form, while it is
always relapsing into formlessness. This oscillation between form
and formlessness is the conception of fluidity, which is therefore
essentially different from that of gasidity; it might be said that the
latter were the arithmetic or constant change of numbers; but that
fluidity were the combination of arithmetic with geometry.
298. If the essence of water consists in the contest between form
and formlessness, it must thus seek to produce fluidity everywhere.
Liquefaction is, however, called solution, namely, globules are formed,
both on a large and small scale. The function of water is therefore
solution. It dissolves the air, (imbibes it) like the earth.
299. Water is more difficult to analyze than air, because its poles are
more fixed.
300. In the analysis of water, the body of heat emerges in a pure state
as hydrogen, because the antagonism here subsists in an abrupt manner;
in the air it is constantly changing. Hydrogen is therefore nitrogen
wholly deoxydised.
301. If water is the oxygen-element, so is it the light-element or
condensed light-æther; thus it is as little something absolutely new as
the air.
302. Terrestrial life originates out of water, as does the cosmic life
out of light. All form originates from water; for it is the general
fluid, or that which strives towards form. Without water, there would
be no life, no Solid and no Organic.
EARTH.
303. If the gravity of æther condenses itself, or the action of gravity
be fixed in a quantity of æther, there originates immobility of the
atoms, i. e. an effort upon their part towards a single direction,
namely, simply towards the centre. The effort towards a single
direction or towards the centre, is cohesion or rigidity.
304. The mass with fixed gravity is carbon. If therefore the carbonic
acid of air, or the carbon of water, obtain the preponderance over the
other elemental bodies, there thus originates the rigid centripetal
element.
305. The heavy, rigid, carbon-element is the _Earth_. The earth is
neither gaseous nor fluid. The earth contains a preponderance of
carbon, with a tolerable quantity of oxygen, and a slight amount of
hydrogen and nitrogen. The earth is an oxyd of carbon.
306. If fire is indicated by + 0-, the air then corresponds to the-,
the water to +, the earth to the 0. The earth is therefore the
Identical, water the Indifferent, air the Different; or the first the
centre, the second the radius, the last the periphery of the general
globe or of fire. The earth is naught but an accumulation of points. If
radii occur in it, it happens only because all points have not place in
the middle point.
307. The capacity for analysis of the elements comports with the serial
order of their origin. The air is most easily analysed, the water with
difficulty, the earth scarcely or not at all. The æther is occupied in
eternal analysis, and therefore appears only when it is momentarily
polarized unto light or heat, i. e. obtains the disposition to fixation.
308. If air represent arithmetic, so does earth the geometry or
universality of forms. Water is the synthesis of both, the algebra;
æther the analysis.
309. The geometrical figures of the earthy are called crystals; the
geometry of the earth is Crystallography.
310. In the creation the three primary ideas attained only by degrees
to reality. First of all the trias becomes real in the air, then the
dyas in water, and lastly the monas in the earth. The creation of the
elements is none other than a representation of the three divine ideas
in a finite sphere. Creation is a process of formation of the nothing.
311. Creation ceases with the production of the fixed or stable form;
for all ideas have parted from each other, and settled down into the
most Individual, with which separation all further formation of new
matters necessarily ceases. Creation is a constant analysis of the
æther, of air, and finally, of water.
312. The element that is correspondent to gravity necessarily
occupies the centre upon the planet. It is surrounded by the element
corresponding to light, the water, like the centre is by the radii;
both are enveloped by the heat-element or air, which forms the
periphery of the globe, the integument of the planet.
313. The forms of the elements are the following; water is spherical
in its greatest as well as least parts; for it is the point merging
out of itself, and can therefore nowhere acquire form. The earth is
everywhere nothing but point; it is therefore concrete, and every
part self-subsistent or individual, while in water no part subsists
for itself, but at every opportunity is confluent with the other, and
therefore arrives nowhere at individuality. Finally, air is the eternal
flight of the smallest parts to the periphery. In the earth the Finite
or Singular is for itself; in the water it is so only through the
Whole; in the air it is not indeed for itself, but is there only the
Whole without individualized parts.
314. The world is twofold, an ætherial and a terrestrial; both are
transcripts or copies of each other, and both ultimately of God. The
terrestrial world has originated out of the æther; it is therefore
further removed from God than the æther; this is the discharged,
purified Terrestrial.
315. God is a threefold Trinity; at first the Eternal, then the
Ætherial, and finally the Terrestrial, where it is completely divided.
316. The holy primary number is 3; the second is 9. The æther is 1 in
3; the other elements are simply the 3 of the æther, together 4. 2 × 3,
however, or 6, lies at the bottom of this 4. The symbolic numbers are
consequently 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, which fundamentally are one and the same,
but in different combinations. With this, however, all formation does
not yet terminate; to the 4 elements is added the vegetable and animal
kingdom. The number of the days of creation is 6.
C.--_STÖCHIOLOGY._
FUNCTIONS OF THE ELEMENTS.
1. _Functions of the Æther._
317. The spiritual activity of æther manifests itself as a _process of
combustion_, which appears as fire. The combination of the substance
with light and heat is fire; the elements have therefore originated
by a process of combustion. All matter has undergone combustion, and
indeed æther has been submitted to the same process. The process of
fixation of the æther or the process of condensation, is consequently a
process of combustion.
318. Each heavenly body has originally burnt, was nothing but fire;
the Vulcanic has preceded the Neptunian agency. It was, however, the
primary process of combustion, through which the at present combustible
matters first originated. The present volcanoes must not be regarded as
synonymous with the primary combustion. There it was not Vesuvii that
burnt, but æther.
319. What has not been burnt upon the planet, is again reduced.
A something that has not originally suffered combustion is a
contradiction. The metal is therefore not the Original, as for
obvious reasons also, the solid cannot proceed directly out of the
æther, without having been first gaseous and fluid. The processes of
combustion upon the planet are all secondary, are imitations of the
primary combustion in matter, in the elements. Fire consists of the
combinations of the three activities, gravity, light, and heat, which
are now to be separately considered.
a. GRAVITY.
320. The functions of gravity are exhibited principally in the motion
of the heavenly bodies, and are so completely unfolded in works upon
Physics and Astronomy, that they may here be passed over in silence.
b. LIGHT.
321. The æther and the terrestrial matter are correlative, like Higher
and Lower, unity and multiplicity, and therefore stand in the same
antagonism with each other, as the air with the two inferior elements.
The æther is constantly seeking to convert the matter into itself, to
render it indifferent by depolarization, this, however, to condense it.
Matter is only condensed æther. This condensation proceeds, however,
from the polarization of light, and it is consequently the activity of
light by which the æther hardens into matter.
322. The activity of the æther or the light dies or becomes obscured in
matter. The next obscuration of light, or its immediate transition into
matter is the polar primary body, _oxygen_. Oxygen is the corporeal
light. It is the spirit of light to posit every thing with an internal
polarity, to convert everything into oxygen, to render everywhere free
the oxygen pole; for the process of fixation can only happen through
activity = light, and fixation is a production of primary bodies.
323. Light is the manifestation of positive tension, of the tension
of oxygen. When this reaches its maximum, light issues forth. This is
evident upon the planet. Every generation of the Similar takes place
through the similar principles; the cosmic generation of light must
be therefore imparted also by positive tension, by that of oxygen. No
reference has been here made to the negative relation of oxygen in
electrical tension; it does not come under the denomination.
324. The sun is the body of oxygen, the _water_ in the world-space; the
planet, however, is the basic body, the earth in world-space. The æther
is diffused between the two as the air of heaven. The sun appears to
have only the density of water; for it is four times less dense than
the earth, and is thus pretty nearly in the condition of water.
325. The sun must be water, even because it is a body of oxygen. It
must be denser than water, because it is in the centre, is central
water.
326. It gives out light only, because it is water; for as such it is in
eternal motion.
327. The solar water is moved by the planets, like ebb and flow. At
every point of the sun opposite to which a planet stands, there is
flow; there the illumination is stronger, in other situations weaker.
There must be several seas of light upon the sun, as many as there are
planets placed opposite to it. There is nowhere a perfectly quiescent
point in the sun; therefore it is nowhere wholly solid.
328. The shining is an ebb and flow of the sun. Query Do not the spots
and flashes of the sun depend upon this? The ebb and flow also of the
sea gives out light; every motion in water shines. The sun does not
simply shine by external motion, but because it is by this motion
polarized unto the Innermost. It is a true gelatinous animal, a body
trembling through its whole mass, and thereupon phosphorescent.
329. The sun is not inhabited. It has no firm ground.
330. The contest of the primary principles of the elemental bodies upon
the planet appears as light.
331. Light is now more closely characterized. It is no longer merely
the tension of æther generally, but tension of material elemental
bodies. Thereby the light has been torn from heaven and given to
the earth. Light has a chemical relation, and admits therefore of
comparison with terrestrial matters.
332. Through light the negative, its opposite or the basic, pole has
been evoked in matter. The sun is self-posited as oxygen against the
planet as Azotic or phlogiston; hydrogen and carbon. Light therefore
deoxydises the bodies; it converts them into itself, into a polar
principle. Acids placed in the light become deoxydised; nitric acid,
muriate of silver. Oxygen is developed in light out of water. In like
manner the constituent parts of the air continue separated only through
light.
INFLEXION.
333. The light tends from the sun to the earth, not merely because
the polarization in accordance with its nature streams forth from the
centre to the periphery, because the light is radiality; but because
the earth is the basic pole of the sun. It is thus polarity, and not
simply the straight line, which light obeys. Light tends to the centre
of the earth, because between this and the sun the tension oscillates.
The line of tension is only between the two centres.
334. In whatever direction light may fall upon the earth, it must
strive towards the middle point. Those bodies that have in themselves
the earthy nature, attract the light, not by virtue of an hidden
quality, but out of the antagonism with the sun; now it may proceed
either from greater density or from true basic import.
335. Rays of light, which pass close to the earth, as rays of tension
between the sun and another star, become, from the polarity of the
earth being stronger than that of the star, diverted from their
straight direction and drawn towards the middle point. This diversion
of light from its direct course is called _Inflexion_.
336. It is chiefly basic bodies that inflect the light towards
themselves. No such body has an infinite shadow. In other respects, all
bodies inflect because they are much denser than light.
TRANSLUCENCY AND REFRACTION.
337. Light, as an Ætherial, permeates matter, and must on that very
account pass toward the middle point of the earth, because it is
virtually none other than the tension of both middle points, the earth
and the sun. Originally therefore the light must have gone through the
earth.
338. This permeation is not, however, mechanical but dynamic, and is
indeed necessarily a propagation of the tension of æther through the
matter.
339. Matter is susceptible of the same polarization of which the æther
is susceptible, because it is on no account different from the æther;
the polarization only takes place more slowly.
340. The transmission of light is called _Translucency_.
341. The æther is transparent, because it is everywhere the propagation
of the tension of light, because it is itself, or becomes, light
everywhere. Bodies can also be transparent, only in so far as they
are the light itself, i. e. in so far as the same polarization can
be excited in them which is constantly excited in æther by the sun.
But this is not only possible, but necessary; for matter is surely
the æther itself, only condensed. The polarity æther must therefore
be capable also of being excited in the condensed æther, although in
a much less degree. The transparency of matter is a tension of æther
continually ringing through matter. The whole universe originally was
transparent; it has only originated through tension of light.
342. Matter is a tension of light that has become central. This
continuous tension of light in matter in relation to the centre, and
thus with curvation, is called _Refraction_.
343. All transparent bodies must refract light. The bodies are,
however, denser than the æther; therefore the light, which passes from
a rarer into a denser medium, must be refracted towards the centre
(plummet of incidence), and in the reverse case turned from it.
344. Materiality is not the only determinant of refraction, but also
the density of the element, the earth refracting light more than water,
and this more than air.
345. The density also is not the only determinant, but the quality
also of the matter; the Basic or Planetary must refract more than the
Oxygenic or Solar.
346. As translucency is not a dead transmission of light, but a
continued propagation of tension; so must it be viewed as a process
of light in matter, but one excited from without. Translucency is a
_co-illumination_, like the concord of equally attuned instruments.
347. Co-illuminating bodies are thus analogous still to the æther.
If there are non-transparent bodies, they can only be found in the
earth-element, which, being furthest removed from the æther, has
perfected itself independently, and they must indeed be wholly
deoxydised.
348. The co-illumination of bodies or their transparency is an
effort of deoxydation. Bodies that cannot at all be deoxydised are
non-transparent.
REFLEXION.
349. Transparency belongs only to those bodies which have in themselves
a twofold character. It will be shown that the metals are absolutely
identical matters, and therefore non-transparent. The metals are the
only non-transparent bodies. Metaleity = non-transparency.
350. The light falls upon a non-transparent only through a transparent
body, and thus one in which the tension of light propagates
itself. This co-illumination of the matter placed in front of the
non-transparent body cannot cease to co-illuminate; the tension must
thus abide in it, and turn back from the non-transparent body, in a
straight direction if the tension fell direct upon it, at a certain
angle, if obliquely. This phenomenon is called _Reflexion_.
351. Reflexion is no repulsion of light, but only its tension continued
into the medium, in which the tension has been.
352. A non-transparent body indicates nothing for the tension of light
but the limit of the co-illuminating matter; it does not at all operate
itself upon the light, it is as it were a void space.
353. Transparent bodies also reflect partly, because they are only
relative æther, because they only co-illuminate, are not themselves
tensed; or because the basis in all is the metal. Every other medium
is, however, an æther differently fixed; in every one therefore the
tension has been changed; every medium is thus a limit for the tension,
and therefore the transparent bodies also reflect. Since the tension
becomes altered, when it passes into another medium, it always remains
by preference in the neutral medium; therefore reflexion originates
also by the air, when the light passes out of glass very obliquely into
it.
_Operation of the terrestrial Elements upon Light._
DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT--COLOURS.
354. It results from all this, that light cannot enter unchanged into
mutual operation with matter. The tension of æther changes itself in
matter. This change of light through the influence of matter is a
debilitation of the tension of æther and lastly its complete cessation.
There can be therefore no absolutely transparent matter; the æther only
is this absolutely transparent matter. The denser a material is, by so
much the more will it be capable of suppressing in itself the tension
of light. The most transparent bodies must also become with a greater
density adiaphanous or opaque, because the Metallic increases in them.
355. This suppression or expiration of the tension of light in bodies
has received, as likewise proceeding from the mechanical theory of
light, the name of _absorption_. The absorption is not a mechanical
adherence of the particles of light in the pores of bodies. There are
no pores for light, and this requires none.
356. The absorption or _decrescence_ of light is a retrogression
of light into the indifference of æther, into _darkness_. Light in
conflict with matter does not continue light, but becomes a mean
condition between light and darkness.
357. The substratum of light, the æther, has two extreme conditions,
and only two, the tensed and the non-tensed; the one is the _light_,
the other the _dark_. Between the two, however, are the mediate
conditions of _twilight_ or "clare-obscure." The light æther emits
rays, the dark does not; the mediate conditions are half the two.
The light condition is the clear unsullied light, the absolute
translucency; the darkness is the absolute want of translucency; the
mediate members are offuscated light, mediate tensions of æther.
358. The mean tension of æther, or light mingled with darkness,
is called _Colour_. Colour is a finite, fixed light, the actual
transmission of light into matter.
359. No matter can be uncoloured. An uncoloured matter is a nonentity.
360. Since matter is rigidified light, even so must it be posited in
reference to colour, like light. Pure light materially substantiated or
posited is _White_. The untensed æther materially posited is _Black_.
361. The mediate tensions of æther, or the mixture of Light and Dark,
are mean conditions of White and Black, mixtures of the two extremes
or androgynisms of White and Black. If we do not call White and Black
colours, colours are then partial positions of light in matter, or in
the dark.
362. Colour originates only in the _confinity_ of Light and Dark, or in
the limit between White and Black. They are therefore microscopic.
363. Darkness is the cause of colours.
364. There is nothing visible but colour, but the coloured matter.
The Non-corporeal itself is invisible. Darkness is the cause of all
visibility. Were there no darkness, there would be no world for the
eye. Colours are only illuminated darkness.
365. In the limit between Light and Dark there is neither White nor
Black, but their possible mediate conditions, or the proper colours,
the material tensions of æther. If the shadow-line of light be viewed
under a magnifying glass, colours will be seen to reside in it. They
are invisible only before on account of their minuteness. The prism and
the lens do nothing else than magnify the shadow-line of light. They
only show the colours that already exist therein, but do not create
them.
366. There is properly only _one_ colour between White and Black;
it is the transmission of light into matter generally. If we look
through a prism with the refracting angle presented downwards, at an
horizontal fissure in the shutter of a dark chamber, the red colour
is then exhibited upon the upper and lower borders of the spectrum
so formed within the eye; thus, in both instances, where the Dark is
above and the White beneath, as also where the latter is above and
the former beneath, as on the inferior border of the opening. Upon
the lower border of the upper Red, and thus in the Clare, Yellow
appears, which is consequently a mixture of Red and White, as seen
through the thinner part of the prism. Yellow is thus brighter Red.
Upon the upper border of the lower Red, thus also in the Clare, Blue
appears, which is consequently a mixture also of Red and White, but
the latter seen through the thicker part of the prism. Blue is thus
offuscated Red. If Yellow and Blue be mixed, Green then originates.
There can be therefore only four colours, whereof the Red is a mixture
of Black and White, Yellow of Red and White, Blue of Red and Black,
Green of Blue and Yellow. The first three are simple or mixed colours,
the last a compound colour or a medley. These colours are parallel
to the gradations in nature, or the latter are none other than the
materializations of colours or the gradations of light. All other
colours must be contained in the Red; it must serve as the basis
or groundwork of all; it must be the noblest, most total, fullest
and purest colour. This colour is the first position of the æther
as matter, and thus of _fire_. _Fire-colour_ is the first-born, the
noblest, highest, fullest, purest; it is the ætherial, cosmic colour.
In fire the light is offuscated by gravity, and thereby coloured.
367. The light is not, however, perfected by its position as fire, but
is posited also terrestrially. There are therefore terrestrial colours
also.
368. There can be only three terrestrial colours, neither more nor
less; for there are only three different material or offuscated
positions of light.
369. The first terrestrial offuscation of light is the _air_. The
colour of the air is thus second in the rank of colours. As the
fire-colour plays the chief part in the cosmic and in all colours, so
does the air-colour among the terrestrial. It is the highest colour of
the planet.
370. The second offuscation of light is water. The colour of water is
the third colour.
371. The third offuscation of light is the earth; and this colour is
the last, the most ignoble. The colours part into two series, the
cosmic or solar, and the terrestrial or planetary. The cosmic is the
Red. The first terrestrial is Blue. The second is Green. The third
is Yellow. Red alone is worth as much as all the three others taken
together. It is the identification of all numbers. Green is merely
their synthesis, the terrestrial, finite totality.
372. The genesis of colours is thus the genesis of the elements, or
that of matter. It cannot be otherwise; for the becoming of matter is
verily an offuscation of light, a coloration. Colour agrees essentially
with the elements, and is itself nothing different from element. Fire
is in its essence red, as being the impartient of light and heat; air
is in its essence nothing else than the blue æther by virtue of its
being gaseous; water is the green æther, earth the yellow. If the æther
is tensed, it then becomes red or fire; if it attains its blue stage,
it becomes air; at the green stage, water, upon the yellow, earth.
373. The elements are only gradations of light, colours. They have
therefore been formed according to the laws of light; for colours are
without doubt the legitimate developments of light.
374. Red, as being the solar or fire-colour, ranks parallel with
oxygen; the more powerful indeed the combustion, the more powerful is
the oxydation, and by so much redder the flame. Matters also become red
through oxydation. The Red vanishes lastly into White, and thus the
highest oxydation is white.
375. The next interchange of Red is with Blue; it becomes red
by oxydation, this again blue by desoxydation, but by excessive
alkalization and terrification, yellow. It is Red that imparts
oxydation, Blue that resolves it and reduces the poles to indifference.
376. From the same cause Red warms, but Blue on the contrary does not.
The calefaction given out in prismatic spectra of colours is an impure
work, in which refractions, diversions and convergences of light, as
well as demi-foci, cooperate.
377. The sun in the firmament may be viewed as the bright opening in
the darkened chamber. Colours are therefore nothing but images of the
sun in darkness, self-manifestations of the sun in dark matter. A point
of light thrown into darkness is colour. This is the case around the
sun, which is therefore surrounded by a hollow globe of colours, by
its own refulgence. The rainbow is a ring around the sun consisting of
infinite positions of the solar spectra in darkness.
378. The symbolical doctrine of the colours is correct according to
the philosophy of nature. _Red_ is fire, love--Father. _Blue_ is air,
truth and belief--Son. _Green_ is water, formation, hope--Ghost. These
are the three cardinal virtues. _Yellow_ is earth, the Immoveable,
Inexorable, falsity the only vice--Satan. There are three virtues,
but only one vice. A result obtained by Physio-philosophy, whereof
Pneumato-philosophy as yet augurs nothing.
COLOURS AND PLANETS.
379. Every condensation of æther by light is consequently a production
of colour, and inversely, every production of colour is a condensation
of the æther. The laws of coloration run parallel with those of
materialization, or, what is more, are the same. The planets are thus
produced according to the laws which light exercises in the production
of colours.
380. There are as many productions of heavenly bodies as there are of
colours, and thus there are four.
381. The sun is the incorporation of Red or fire, the planets are that
of the three terrestrial colours. The comets belong to the kingdom of
darkness.
382. The planets are only suns reflected in darkness as in a mirror;
they have originally been hollow globes of colour, then orbitar
rings of colour (solar rainbows), then points of colour. The planets
are coagulated colours, for they are coagulated light. At that very
distance from the sun, where light begins to grow dim, where, to speak
in the Newtonian sense, it begins to refract, there planetary mass
originates. The mass of the planet thus coagulates together around the
sun, but not in an uniform manner like a mass of pulp, but in pauses of
colours, exactly like a rainbow.
383. These planetary chromatic arcs or bows of colour are related to
the sun like the three terrestrial colours to the cosmic, or as the
three terrestrial elements to fire. _Three_ planetary productions
must have thus formed around the sun, because the light condenses,
materializes itself in three moments. Therefore the planets range
themselves in groups at three great distances. To the _first_
production belong Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Vesta, Juno, Ceres
and Pallas. They are the first digression from Red, the Yellow; the
Earthy preponderates in them. They are all placed close together. To
the _second_ production belong Jupiter and Saturn; water rules them,
and fluctuates visibly upon them; they are the Green. They range
at a great distance from the former group. To the _third_ and most
remote productions belongs Uranus; it is the Blue, in which the air
preponderates. It again ranges at a great distance from the former
group. The comets are naught but æther, which is about to become air.
384. The production of the earth-planets or of the first group is
dispersed into so many as it is on account of the proximity of the sun,
on account of the energy of the rays of light, as well as the import of
the Earthy, which exists essentially under many forms. The planetary
rings have been arranged like scales behind each other, like clouds
through electrical pauses; but these repeat themselves more rapidly, in
the neighbourhood of the sun.
c. HEAT.
385. While the æther falls into a state of tension or shines, it is
thrown into motion. This motion of æther manifests itself as the
conatus or effort to extension. The extension, however, considered as a
world-phenomenon, is _Heat_.
386. Light, when it operates upon terrestrial matter, excites this to
special polarization, whereby the Ætherial that is in it is set in
motion, i. e. heat is generated.
387. Light never moves directly the mass itself, but only the Ætherial
that is in it. Through this motion of the æther it becomes separated
from matter; and this separation is manifested as _free_ heat.
388. Heat is not matter itself any more than light is, but it is only
the act of motion in the primary matter. In heat, as well as in light,
there certainly resides a material substratum; yet this substratum does
not give out heat and light; but the _motion_ only of the substratum
gives out heat, and the _tension_ only of the substratum light. There
is no body of heat; hydrogen is the body of heat, just as oxygen may be
called the body of fire.
389. Heat is real space; into it all forms have been resolved, as all
materiality has been resolved into gravity, and all activity, all
polarity into light. Heat is the universal form, consequently the want
of form.
390. Light properly develops heat out of matter through separation of
the fixed poles from the substance, whereby the latter again passes
over into æther.
391. The development of heat in a body is not an extrusion of a matter
adherent, and as it were foreign, to it; but an ascent of the matter
itself into heat. The matter does not develop, or give out heat, but
_becomes_ heat, namely æther.
392. The loss which a body sustains by the radiation of heat is as
slight as the æther is subtile or rare; thus it is infinitely small,
where the æther is infinitely light. We cannot speak of the loss of
matter, while it is hot; although a true loss is present, if the point
in question be philosophically regarded, it can come, however, as
little under consideration as the weight of the æther.
393. The fusion of bodies is a diminution of the fixity of their poles,
their further evaporation, and thus an approximation to indifference or
the apolarity of æther. Heat is the actual retrogression of matter into
æther; light is only the efficient of this transition.
394. As heat becomes originally excited, so must it be always
excited; two causes for one effect are impossible. The excitation of
heat by oxydation takes place in the same way as by light, namely
by polarization and separation therefore of the Indifferent. The
generation of heat by chemical processes is based upon the same
principle. Lastly, the generation also of heat by compression and
simple _friction_ is wholly similar to that which is caused by
light. In every case they are only polar, and by no means mechanical
operations upon matter, whereby the fixity of the poles becomes changed.
395. It is not a change of cohesion, which the friction mechanically
effects, but the act is purely dynamical. The essence of friction
consists in the constant renewal of polar change, because thereby an
infinite number of projecting points or apices are alternately brought
into contact. There is verily no smooth body.
396. Heat is the transition of light unto darkness; for it is
indifferent æther, only moved. Colours are thus also a conflict of
light with heat, and out of this conflict issues the most beautiful,
the highest colour, the Red of fire. In fire, the contest between light
and darkness has risen to the highest pitch; the æther therefore is
also moved to the greatest degree, becomes hot. If the indifference
becomes the maximum, the vital tension then relaxes, the fire is
extinguished; finally motion ceases, it is cold and dark.
397. In matter also light and heat operate against each other. Light
deoxydizes, heat oxydizes. If light appears to oxydize, it is only by
evoking heat.
398. Heat is the function of expansion for matter. Every body has a
definite degree or amount of expansion, therefore a definite fixity of
æther; this æther is _latent_ heat.
399. Heat operates spherically in matter or in all directions, not in
the linear direction like light. The propagation of heat can only take
place slowly, because it is not a polar action, but only the result of
such an one, only motion. Heat does not penetrate bodies mechanically,
but dynamically like light, yet without decomposing them, as light does.
400. Heat is related as indifferent æther to the matter as to a Polar.
This relation imparts the _process of conduction_. Light, however, is
itself polar and disturbs matter, while it passes through it.
401. With the exception of their cohesion matters are not directly
changed by heat.
402. During every process of decomposition, during every process of
light heat must be produced, but not light also during every process of
heat.
403. Dense materials must conduct heat because they are most opposed to
it. It is only the formed element therefore that can possess capacity
for conducting heat.
404. Absence of form is the character of isolators of heat, form that
of the conductors, apart from every remaining quality. Solid bodies,
which easily pass into the formless condition are isolators.
405. The densest bodies among the solids must be the best conductors.
Regard may be first paid to the nature of their constituent parts in
the sequel of the present section of this work.
406. The conduction of heat is a continuous excitation from one part
striving against or resisting the other; the earths (as metals) are the
best conductors.
407. Matters, which are images of heat, do not conduct, because
they enter only as minimum into conflict with it, and while they
expand at once convert themselves into the same. Such is the air.
The Heterogeneous only conducts. The heat expands in the air only by
continuous motion of the aerial particles. The air is an isolator.
Water ranks in the middle between air and earth.
408. With respect also to conduction, light is opposed to heat. Light
is conducted by those very bodies, which isolate heat, and isolated,
not admitted to permeate or absorbed, by those which conduct heat. The
air conducts light, isolates heat; the metal, the earth conducts heat,
isolates light; water holds a mediate relation towards the two, yet
towards light that of a conductor, because it is deoxydizable.
409. The conduction of light is likewise a process of deoxydation,
or a disintegration of matter. By the conduction of light the bodies
are chemically analysed, and finally resolve themselves into their
principles; such after all is the case with every glass and crystal.
As the process of conduction of light may be called a process of
deoxydation, so also may it be called a process of the generation of
colour. The conduction is an offuscation of light, a colouring; the
deoxydation is a solution of the material bonds, an elevation unto
colour.
2. _Functions of the Air._
ELECTRICITY.
410. The air is the slightest combination of the primary bodies,
and stands in opposition with the two other elements, as more solid
combustions. In this antagonism the air lays claim upon the other
elements to analyse them; these, however, upon the air, to combine, and
undergo more vivid combustion.
411. This antagonism is on a large scale an antagonism of periphery and
centre, like the primary antagonism, by which planets and suns have
withdrawn from each other. The tension of air with the other elements
is called _Electricity_. The centroperipheric antagonism between
the sun and the planet, between light and colour, represented in an
elementary manner is electricity.
412. Sun and planet are electrically related to each other, and
the circumrotation of the latter may be viewed as conditioned by
the change of electrical poles. Colours also are only electrical
productions. Light itself is similar to an electrical tension of the
æther.
413. Electricity is an action of the periphery or limit and thus of the
surface of the globe. The surface of the globe is, however, everywhere
+-without centre. The principles of electricity are therefore eternally
separated without having a middle point, as occurs in magnetism. The
electrical poles live in eternal animosity, because they have no point
of union. Such is then the essence of electricity. Electricity is
therefore only a function of surfaces without any line. It clings only
to the upper surface of the bodies, and does not penetrate into their
thickness. It is only the tension of the surfaces of bodies against
each other, of the apices of divided radii.
414. The air is the periphery, the _limit_ or boundary of the earth.
Electricity is therefore the spirit of air. It is in its most active
state in that stratum of air which is in contact with the earth,
because there the limits are situated. Upon this lightning depends.
415. Electricity, as an aerial function, is terrestrial heat. Both are
therefore conducted by the same rigid linear bodies and isolated by the
same. The isolation of electricity coalesces with absence of form, or
with the transition of denser bodies into air.
416. Electricity is an antagonism between air on the one side and water
and earth upon the other. By these therefore two kinds of operation are
posited in the air.
417. While electricity is the tension of air with the other elements,
it is also the tension of the principles themselves of air. Electricity
is a twofold char
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